Abel--during our last Doctoral class we study MOOCs and we come to an understanding that most MOOCs are a great resource for students and for learning specific items. We had a great discussion on how does a professor account for the online presences or personalization of over 10 of thousands of students in some cases. Students need to have a personal engagement inorder for a student to learn that applies to online courses or a face 2 face course. Althought it is inexpensive for students and higher ed, I believe we still have ways to go.
Education reform has to happen since society is constantly evolving and changing. I can not teach the same way I taught 20 years ago, or even five years ago. Technology has had a great impact on the way we teach and the way students learn. The teaching profession is trying to keep up with the pace of all these changes. We used an educational system that derived from an agricultural era and a believe that everyone has to go to college. Sir Robinson-states that we have an education system that is obsessed about everyone going to college. I agree that college is not for everyone and yet me must create productive citizens, individuals that contribute to society. Schubert states that curriculum " is a journey of learning, growing and becoming".
My teachers are always looking for Web. 2.0 resources and enjoy teaching them the tools, the issue has always been how do the incorporate the technology into their lessons.I have notice that once they feel comfortable with the web tools the they start using or incorporating it into the lesson-self efficacy. During our discussion with technology I explain that the tools is not as important as the "impact" that the technology has on learning. Try Aurasma for augmented reality, Remind 101 for messaging, TodaysMeet for engagement, Educreations for podcasting, Pic Collage for storyboards and Scorative for assessment. QR codes are also excellent for ELA. Each tool requires time to learn then the hard part is to incorporated into the lesson.