Visions of Educational Technology

I enjoy following a blog called, Dangerously Irrelevant.  Check them out at  http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/
Below is part of the post for September 7.  It is worth reading and valuable to think about.
Let me know what you think about the vision of educational technology for Adventist education.

====== Following Re-Posted from Dangerously Irrelevant ======

Competing visions of educational technology

Posted: 07 Sep 2011 03:44 AM PDT

I just ran across this series of posts from Mickey Muldoon, in which he describes some competing visions of educational technology from the Aspen Ideas Festival:

• Overview
• Vision 1: Stay the course
• Vision 2: Wholesale transformation
• Vision 3: Free access to technology and content
• Vision 4: Technology as an enabler of project-based learning

Happy reading!

Related posts:

1. Creating the new schooling paradigm: Educational technology policy priorities, Part 1 [due date: Jan. 20]
2. If we were really serious about educational technology
3. Greater use of technology allows for decreased numbers, but improved quality, of teachers?

Teaching Students to Pray

If we want kids to know God, not just know about Him, we need to teach them to pray and we need to pray with them. There are no worksheets about God, there are no stories about Him, that will teach as well as when your students talk to God, listen to God, and begin to know His heart.

"It's like me and President Obama.” nine-year-old Jamar told me. “I've seen him on TV lots of times. I've heard my parents talking about him. But I've never really talked with our president, so I don't really know him."

Exactly right, Jamar!

Kids need to learn that they can talk with God just like they talk to Mommy, Daddy, or a best friend. They need to realize that God is there and listens to what they have to say. He never puts them on hold or plays a recorded message. God always listens, whether they are on the playground, at a friend's house, in the car, or at church.

But how do we teach that to them? Well, here are a dozen suggestions. I encourage you to try one or you may be inspired to come up with your own method.

• Tell them a time that you prayed and received the answer in a surprising or dramatic way. Hearing how you talked to God and how He answered you makes it more real than just reading a story in a book.
  
  
• The next time a child comes to you with a problem or worry, instead of saying, "I'll pray for you," do it—right then. Even if it is a short prayer, you will be showing that God wants us to cast our cares and concerns on Him and pray about everything and at any time.
  
  
• Talk about the news. Ask each child to come up with a concern that they could pray about. There are no shortages of devistatig events in the world or around their own home town to pray about. Then take time to pray for those things.
  
  
• One of the first ways kids learn about prayer is hearing adults giving thanks in prayer. Moms, dads, teachers, and other significant adults need to give thanks in prayer. First thing you know, the kids are thanking God for Mommy, Daddy, a puppy, new shoes, toys, eyes, ears, nose, recess, their school. Kids thank God for the strangest things! And it is not only the little one that grows spiritually by this. Hearing a child's simple prayers, causes adults to remember the blessings in their life, too.
  
  
• Sometimes we hear kids say, "There's nothing to pray for," or "Prayer is boring." To get out of these ruts of prayer, use prayer targets and making prayer active. One teacher used a game called "Musical Prayers." She put a chair for each student in a circle. Taped to each chair was a prayer target. Everyone walked around the chairs as the music played. When the music stopped, each pupil sat in the nearest chair and prayed for that need.
  
  
  Another classroom uses an inflatable world globe and passed it around the class while music plays. When the music stops, the person holding the globe chooses a country and prays for the children in that country to know Jesus.
  
  
• Take your class on a prayer walk. Walk around your neighborhood and ask God's blessing and salvation on each family. Pray for the children in each home. Or walk down the hall in your school and pray for each classroom. Children are terrific prayer walkers because they enjoy movement and being "on site" makes the prayers more meaningful.
  
  
• Let them talk to God in different postures: sitting, standing, kneeling, with bowed head, or gazing upward. Teach them they can even pray when they are walking,  marching, or riding their bike.  Allow your students to choose the posture that is appropriate for the situation.
  
  
• Praying a prayer of blessing on a child's life can bring reassurance, comfort, and hope to their heart. Pray for protection and peace. Thank the Lord for something specific - a gift, talent, or quality in the child. You can use a Bible blessing such as Psalm 5:12 or Numbers 6:25 or speak from your heart. A teacher might select one student each day and pray a blessing on them. Let the children pray a blessing on their teacher, the principal, or the pastor.
  
  
• An important part of prayer is simply learning to say, "Thank You, God." Fill a small box with slips of paper. Encourage students to write or draw pictures of things for which they are thankful. Ask each child to say a sentence prayer, thanking God for the blessing they have named.
  
  
• Keep a notebook of answered prayers. Some teachers make it a scroll and add things to it when their students see answers.
  
  
• Contact missionaries through your church, conference, or union by e-mail and find out what they need. Or ask for the name of a student in their school that your kids can pray for.
  
  
• At one school, the teacher made a list of all of the other schools in that conference. Each week they prayed for one of the schools and wrote a letter to that school to tell them they were the target of their prayers. The return letters were posted on a “Prayer Wall” where students could see how prayers work.

As you try different ways of connecting with God, your students will learn that prayer is one of the greatest adventures in life. Help them to know they can call on the God of the universe and they will hear from Him. Jeremiah 33:3 says: "Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and wondrous things you do not know." 

Technology Ideas for Adventist Teachers

From time to time, the Panorama of Educational Thoughts blog will attempt to look at some of the ways we can use the technology of the twenty-first century to prepare our Adventist teachers with methods that best use for teaching students in the 21st Century.

Here are a few for you to take a look at.  I would love to hear from you and learn what you think of these methods.  Go to the comments section and leave a reply or send me a message at: vaughn.jennings.pet@gmail.com

Check out the All About Learning Press at this site:  www.allaboutlearningpress.com

They have some awesome tips on teaching spelling:  www.allaboutlearningpress.com/spelling-resource-center
You will also find a page for pre-reading ideas:  www.allaboutlearningpress.com/all-about-reading

You will love their Face Book page on teaching reading, too. www.facebook.com/allaboutreading
There is also an excellent page on spelling: www.facebook.com/allaboutspelling?sk=app_190322544333196

The idea of this company is to have resources for home school families.  But these ideas and books are perfect for small classes like we often have in Adventist schools.  They are also wonderful for kids who need remedial work.  See if they have something you can use.

Remember to leave a message, below.  Tell other teachers about this blog.  We all need to help each other.

Adventist Education in the 21st Century

In her book, Education, Ellen White tells us, “True education means more than pursuing a certain course of study. It has to do with the whole person, and with the whole period of existence possible to human beings. It is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers.”

Rather than pretending that we live in a pencil, notebook paper, and ring binder world, we need to put a digital learning device into every student’s hands; or let them bring and use their own. It is time that Adventist education get serious about "harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers.”  We must recognize the power and potential/limitations of online learning rather than just assuming that it can’t be as good as face-to-face instruction.

Teachers need to be proficient with the digital tools that are transforming everything in the world, instead of chuckling about how little we know about computers. Conference administrators need to insist that teachers and principals know how to use digital tools for creating, facilitating, and/or sustaining 21st century learning environments. 

A study should be done to discover the percentage of our schools’ families that don’t have broadband Internet access at home; instead of claiming the ‘digital divide’ as a reason not to give homework requiring the Internet.

Instead of banning online social networks, because they’re “dangerous” and/or “frivolous,” our policies should require teachers to show students how to edit the privacy settings and use groups in Facebook or other social media. Students ought to be taught how to contribute to information sites rather than banning Wikipedia. We need to have schools creating videos, using live streaming, and developing ways to collaborate with other schools—even ones in other conferences or sponsored by other churches.

We need to learn about and teach the true risk of students encountering online predators and make policy accordingly instead of useing the scare tactics of the media, politicians, law enforcement, computer security vendors, etc. We can not train our students to be missionaries if they are afraid to contact anyone who is not an Adventist.

We are teaching students in the 21^st Century. If you are still using 19^th and 20^th century methods your students are not being given the education they need to be workers for God.

Videos for Teachers

Here are a few videos that teachers ought to watch.  First there are two commercials for the iPad. The first one mainly explains the power of iPad apps to facilitate learning.  I especially like the second one because it shows how the lines are blurring as these technologies become part of our every day lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5i1Dyj5k1A&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFFkK2SmPg4&feature=youtu.be

Then watch these two videos that every teacher needs to see.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxHb5QVD7fo&feature=player_embedded  is a music video of a song named "I Need My Teachers to Learn."  Listen to each verse and se how our schools might need to change policies in order to better teach students.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KMM387HNQk&feature=player_embedded  is an animated fable for teachers to help explain the need to be creative and think outside the box. Let me know what you think about these.  How will YOU make changes in your policies and learn how to better help students in the 21st century learn?