Blog Post Assignment # 10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
This video gives the definition of both what it means to teach and what it means to educate. To teach is to just relay information, so called "burp back education" where as educating is much more. Educating is enlightening,adventurous and has no end. I will be an educator and not a teacher in my classroom because I will empower my students with the ability to explore all different avenues if learning. There a are several different ways I can do this and a lot of them I have learned in this class.
One way I can be an educator is by showing by students how to find information and resources on the interned and how to use them properly. I can show them how to create a PLN that can help them expand upon their learning and understanding of subject matter. I can have them peer review one another to learn from others mistakes as well as how to properly correct work if its wrong. Students can become educated by creating blogs and videos on different subject matter being studied. They will have to learn to work cooperatively in groups and overcome different obstacles like ones that occur in real life. Through educating students in this way that will be better prepared for the real world.

Tom Johnson's Adventures in Pencil Integration.
When I read this post "Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home", I had to read it twice to fully understand the post. Johnson presented his argument in a somewhat satirical way. Through reading the comments left by others and viewing some of his other post I found his argument to be about technology and computers in the classroom. He is making the argument in this specific post about why students should be allowed to take pencils home and how it cannot adversely affect test scores. He is making his argument towards Gertrude, the School Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist, who says to Tom that students who take home pencils will have lower standardized test scores. Tom presents her with how he is on his way to having a solution for the problem. He has "met with the parents and the students and explained ways that pencils could be used for learning." This way parents can be more informed about how their children can use pencils for productive work. He also is confronted about students using pencils for fun at home such as playing hang man and not staying on task. Johnson replies by saying,
"if they choose to play Hang Man or go on the pen pal networks, I'm okay with it. There's probably some learning that's taking place that we don't realize." I like the approach he has taken by showing how ridiculous some people are about technology and computers in the classroom by using pencils in his writing, which have been a means of learning for centuries.