When I taught kids in Korea, my students were 4-6years old so I thought they are too young to decide something themselves in class. Of course, I forced them kindly(?) to follow me because they look like clueless and naive. However, Teacher Tom's post "Follow the Leader" made me realize how silly I was. His writing was instructive and I could learn 'leadership' and 'followship' are crucial in class.
Here's impressive lesson from Teacher Tom
: When we fail as teachers, and we all do, I think it's often because what we are doing simply isn't great enough or instructional enough to attract that first follower. But when we succeed, once we've inspired that first follower, watch out!
These days, learners are not just absorbing information from teachers and textbook, they are changing themselves to be more connective using their newest tools to get more information. I think learners are like 'bees'. Bees cannot live alone. They should live together, work together to keep their house and find honey. Learners of todays also diligently work to find new inforation with others. In a digital era, learners are being more active and using more technologies to get knowledge. Siemens said in his article, ”Connectivism provides insight into learning skills and tasks needed for learners to flourish in a digital era”. To get unlimited information efficiently, learners are familiar with their tools like SNS, share their information and enhance it. It means we have to develop ourselves to follow rapidly changing knowledge.
When he said “What we know today is not as important as our ability to continue to stay current.” in his video clip, he might want to emphasize the importance of keep learning. If we are retarded or stop following technology, we can’t move on to next level of new information. Personally, I’m not good at computer and any technology but I’m trying to follow these things. I started to use iphone to google and check my e-mail. Also, I made my Korean blog and share opinion with my friends. As a future teacher, I think teachers should stay current or even earlier than students.
I recently watched the video ‘Social Media Revolution 2’.
It was some astounding social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. It conflates a lot of stats in order to make a case for social media being the biggest shift since the industrial revolution.
Through this clip, I could easily understand social media and its effects.
Social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have become common ground for businesses to target potential customers with advertising and promotional material. Video sites such as YouTube allow users to build a profile, upload videos, post comments, and even allow others to subscribe to a channel.
You might have seen that icons above. You can even find similar icons in the bottom page of this post. All you need to do for subscribing favorite things is just clicking one of those icons that are located in the bottom part of most articles or pages. It shows that the social media is not only a communication tool, but also a pathway to express someone’s opinion.
According to this video, 80% of companies use social media for recruitment. This phrase is something I want to point out. Meaning that inappropriate post like offensive status updates do affect students to be hired in this modern society. It reminded me of the topic about safety tips that I posted before. Students should not expose their private things to the company that they apply.
I’m quite honestly have been struggling to understand why I must struggle to change my habits and engage online. As a future teacher, the above statistics give me motivational urgency.
