Learning to Unlearn

Everyday technology advances. It might not be available to the public yet, but it is advancing. This chapter in the book "The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age," the author states how important unlearning material is. Alvin Toffler said, "The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." I believe everyone has the ability to unlearn and then relearn what is needed. For example, we have gotten so technical and have morphed our writing into text speak. That must be unlearned in order to be relearned for formal writing.

There are three elements to unlearning and relearning. The first is knowledge for practice. This is a passive strategy. It lays the groundwork for gaining experience and it gives you shared information between your professional learning networks and professional learning communities. The next is knowledge in practice. This recognized the educators knowledge for improvement in the classroom. This is often referred to as "try it out and see if it works." You have to practice your opportunities so you can share your feedback with other educators who are looking to improve their practices in the classroom. The final element is knowledge of practice. This is collaborative. It allows or more deep learning and it goes beyond the classroom itself. This is more hypothetical and philosophical: asking many questions.

Teachers often teach from the ways in which they themselves were taught in grade school/secondary school. They often revert back to that style of teaching, but it is not effective to children in our classrooms to necessarily teach how we were taught. With all the advanced research, we now know there is such thing as differentiated learning and that we should have a differentiated classroom. As teachers, we must unlearn how we were taught and relearn how to teach the new generation and the generations to come.

Interactive Whiteboards in Today's Classroom

Every day, technology gets one step closer to being, well, we don't know what technology is stepping closer to. Perhaps it's stepping towards all of the mass destruction that happens in Terminator. Or it could be moving towards the animated movie, Meet the Robinsons where there were flying cars, bubble travel and human-like robots have accentuated emotion and feelings and speech. The truth is, we don't actually know where the future of technology is taking us. While we do know it's movie forward, we are also moving much of this technology into our classrooms. One form of this is the addition of the interactive white board (IWB) into classrooms.

Interactive white boards are simply white boards that are connected to a computer, essentially creating a large computer screen. It is touchable and 100% interactive. Two companies are currently the leaders in this technology. They are SMART and Promethean. Each company put a twist onto the board itself and how it is able to be used, but these are the companies that are most often found in classrooms. When I was in high school, we had a SMART/Promethean board in every classroom. Some classrooms never used them, but in my freshman English class, my teacher created games and we played the games to review the material. It was always a lot of fun and we were able to learn and make sure we knew the material. It was really helpful for everyone.

Personally, I believe that these are great tools to use in a classroom. They are interactive and kids love interaction. It isn't necessarily a hands on type of deal, but it has enough of an interactive appeal to act as hands on as possible. Teachers have done dissections using the boards, word games, presentations, math activities, and many other activities. The boards can be very useful when it comes to creating a differentiated classroom. Every single student is very different from the next student you will teach. Whether they are visual or a kinetic learner or anything else, the boards can be set up to play to everyone's strengths. The visual learners see it, the auditory learners hear it, and the kinesthetic learners do it.