Incursion not excursion in the interactive age

I was reading Carmel's Blog today and decide to comment on some of the articles she posted. In regards to the SMH article http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/incursion-not-excursion-in-the-interactive-age-20120311-1usa2.html i would first like to say... the lady in the picture taught me drama!!!!! Now that that excitements out of the way...the first thing that grabbed me in this article.. well second thing after my drama teacher was the video about teaching musica viva through smart technology. One of the things i found most difficult about my first year of university was the music movement and dance class. I have poor fine motor skills and really struggled with the subject. I was overwhelmed trying to figure out a beat and then contemplating teaching something i could barely understand to students being their only music influence, well its terrifying. However thanks to technology i can take a few breaths and know that theres support and an expert is only a mouse click away. To me that is the joy of technology. So true- "The optimism is palpable as digital advances threaten to change the way teachers teach and children learn". I think the other really big thing that i get for this article is the significance of interactive whiteboards. There have been so many technological innovations but IWBs have opened so many doors and allowed us to do so much i cant help but wonder if this is how it felt when teachers using blackboards first used whiteboards. :)

"Online ethics should begin in the classroom, educators say"

I recently stumbled across an article from the USA about University of Delaware teaching an online ethics course and requiring students to pass a corresponding exam in their first year  of university. I think this is a fantastic idea. Teachnology is so complex and the ethics sourounding it eclipse that complexity ten fold. If we as teaching can explicitly teach was is and is not ethical behaviour then we better equip students to cope and thrive is this highly technological age. I believe there is much more to emailing then simply knowing how to write and send an email. As the article states "It's very important that students understand that an electronic community requires people to behave in a responsible way,". This is something that we start to teach students  when we start to teach them how to use technology. Already in the US there has been calls to add ethical standards as a learning outcome such as requiring students to "exhibit legal and ethical behaviors when using information technology and discuss consequences of misuse,". I think this would be a positive step towards greater ethical awareness in school. When there is such a great focus on meeting the syllabus requirements i think the only effective way to address ethics in technology is to make it a part of the syllabus.


This article is great i recommend it to anyone! http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/cyber/education/16education.html