A Quiz Can Tell All

I have always been one to love taking quizzes that are suppose to tell me about myself. Something that the internet has opened up to me. I love to see what the quizzes have to say about my personality or career or even the silly ones that tell me when I am going to get married. Which by the way according to a quiz I took over the summer will happen when 19 (I am now 20). So I definitely have grown not to trust quizzes such as that but some quizzes that are lengthily or found on education sites about learning styles or multiple intelligences are a little more accurate than a silly “when will you get married quiz”. I do find faults in all quizzes though because they cannot know you just because you have answered a large series of questions that are suppose to dig deep into the heart of you. For instance I think that many people who truly know me would not say that I am a great people person. Not that I don’t like people but that I am definitely more of a interpersonal person that intrapersonal. See I took a quiz about multiple intelligences and the greatest surprise was when it told me I was a people person. Maybe I am becoming one through the help of college experience but if you ask my family or high school friends that I was a great people person they would probably laugh. I love people and being around them but if I do not get my alone time I just get tired of it. I cannot always be around people because it makes me exhausted and I also am not sure always how to engage in conversation with people. I always thought of myself more of a interpersonal person and I know when I took a quiz a year ago on the same thing it told me I was interpersonal. So either I am inconsistent and confusing in my answers or I have changed. One of my strengths in the quiz was nature learning in which I fully agree upon. I am a lover of God’s creation and I plan on using nature to teach my students as much as possible. My dream is to actually work with students in nature aided education – somewhat like nature therapy. I know that this is not the best way to teach for all students so until I can create my own school for this type of learners I know I will have to be fair and integrate every one of the multiple intelligences into the picture even if I do not see the importance of it. I know it could be important to my future student. I also recently took a learning styles quiz which tells me which learning style fits me best. In most of the styles I fell in the middle and seemed to be pretty balanced between two but when it came to visual the quiz showed me on the upper scale of being visual. I know this means I have to work extra hard to keep in check the amount of visuals I use and make sure that I can also relate to students who need more explaining and instructions than just that of pictures.

My Bad

I always thought that I had a handle on understanding computers pretty well. I probably could figure most things out if I tried but a survey I took on Profiler Pro showed me how little I actually knew how to do. Most of the questions I had no idea how I to answer them. Because of that fact I realized how poor my technology skills truly are. I am not sure how to translate my scores because I didn’t know how to answer the questions so I am not sure how accurate they results truly are. I did learn a great deal about myself though as I took this quiz. I definitely need to learn how to use technology to my advantage in the classroom. I figured technology was so simple and didn’t realize the vast possibilities it would present me as a teacher. According to the quiz on Profiler Pro there is so much to learn about how to use technology to better improve the classroom. I want to make it a goal to reach into the greater knowledge that the advances of technology now present. I am a fast learner when it comes to technology but lately I have been seeing that technology and I do not always get along. The problem I have with technology is not the fact of knowing how to do things but rather the fact of technology failing when I come around. There have actually been times where I have been trying to do something with a computer and failing when someone else comes and does the exact same thing I have been doing without any troubles. It is frustrating at time because the internet just knows when I am trying hard to get something done but just doesn’t want to see me succeed. I know this might all be in my head but it seems more and more real lately but I know that little by little I will conquer this problem between the computer and I and we will learn how to work together to better the learning of my students when I eventually have a classroom.

Finding the Tech in Teachers

Lately technology has been offering a lot of great opportunities to both students and teachers. Google.docs for teachers is something that I feel can be a help to the educator in the classroom. I know the basics of how to use documents and things like that but most of the information presented on google.docs I never took in consideration of how so many things could be used in the classroom. I would love to learn as much as possible how to integrate these things found on this site into my classroom to improve the quality of learning. I never imagined that something done on a computer could help with peer skills. I usually visualized computer things being more individual but it would be interesting to see how technology could help improve student’s skills with interacting with each other. As a teacher I would love to use google docs in my classroom and show how tech can be in a teacher!

Can't We All Just Get Along

I am one who feels that technology can bring a lot to the table for children of this day and age but I don’t think this means we should rule out every single other way of doing things. I still feel like standards are important but I do agree that we need to educate children on what they need to know. Such things as good grammar and proper spelling should not be lost. I myself am a horrible speller. Spell check in word always fixes my errors and I somewhat feel like I have just stopped trying to learn how to spell and become so dependent on spell check that when I write an e-mail that does not come with a spell check program or on paper I feel inadequate and almost dumb for the mistakes I make.
In watching the learning to change changing to learn video I felt that I didn’t fully agree with all the teachers were saying. I still feel like knowing facts is something that is important because I couldn’t get this to play in odyssey and I saw it on youtube and a comment someone made struck me, it is important to help the students learn so they can grow up and get jobs but to forget core subjects would be foolish. Children still should know how to read and write and be proficient incase technology is not working. Technology is a very good thing for education these days but to make a student so dependable on technology that without it they feel incapable of doing anything on their own. I want my students to be confident in all areas whether it is with or without the help of technology. so I thought what the one man said was important to give them skills they need to perform these jobs but to just forget all standard and teaching them facts is not where I think this should lead I think that technology is great tool in teaching but not just teaching the students how to search things but teaching them the core with the help of technology. Integrating technology could be a great thing but I do not think it should completely take over.
I fell there are good and bad sides to both the traditional and new technological way of educating. Technology sometimes seems to do all the work for you and traditional ways do not keep the attention of this generation's students. But I think that an integration of technology along with teaching the general core could do both teachers and students alot of good.

Name five reasons young people want to use technology.

1. Very convenient - you can have access to almost anything you want with out having to leave the comfort of your home. There is so much information that we can get on the internet that would usually come from research done through books that you would normally get from the library or even download books we can read online instead of having to buy it or check out from the library. Shopping is also something that we can do from almost any store we choose without having to ever step foot in the actual store.
2. Fast - you can view and learn most anything that you want with just one click of the button. Instead of having to do extensive research through many books now you can just type in some key words in a search box and a whole realm of information is open to you. Instead of sending someone a letter you could easily talk to anyone from a cell phone or an e-mail even if they lived on the other side of the planet.
3. It's something fun and cool to do and young people always like to have fun and do the next coolest thing. They always look for something new and fun to do….technology seems to be taking over in that area. The newest video games and computers are always in demand by young people because its something fun that can take up time either if you are bored or just wanting to do something else besides homework.
4. It can help you express yourself as some said in the video. You can create your own websites to show what you like and also pages such as MySpace which allows you to create your own back ground have your own music and express your personality through the computer screen. Sometimes I find it hard to express myself through words or to people but on the internet I feel so much comfortable to let myself show through because I don't have to fear someone's reaction because I won't see it. I know for me the internet has made me more comfortable to be me.
5. It is a new way of socializing. There are so many ways online that young people can communicate with each other. Whether it be an instant message, a comment on a Facebook or MySpace page, or even a blog that communicates likes and ideas of that individual. You can contact people in so many ways that you don't feel like it is an intrusion in their life. Just barging into someone's home or even calling could interrupt something that the person was in the middle of and I know I always feel bad if that happens. But sending a txt or leaving a message on someone's wall allows that person to respond to you in their own time. Also if you want something to stay a little more private you don't have to wisper but now you can just send someone a message in an e-mail or an instant message.

Did you identify with any of the young people in the clip? Why?

I think I would say I could identify with some of the people in the clip because I know I use technology regularly and it is something that is very important to me. I keep in touch with so many people with the help of technology. If I didn’t have technology I am sure that so many people would hardly ever hear from me especially here in college where I am away from my home land. Most of the young people n the clip expressed how important technology is to each one of them so I can definitely relate to them in that way. I guess I also relate to the boy who said that in real life if you miss there isn't any redo's (usually) but in technology there is ways to fix your mistakes and make your work even better.

Do you agree that having instant access to everything via the internet helps you to know your self better? Why or why not?

I feel that having instant access to everything on the web could possibly help me to get to know myself better but am not sure if I have experienced it yet. I know that having all this information and programs on the internet help me learn more about things I enjoy. Sometimes I even learn something new that I enjoy and would have not known if it wasn't for the internet. So I feel now after having to think about it that I do know myself better because of technology. I know more of what I like and I know it might be silly but even in taking quizzes on the internet help me know more. I love taking personality quizzes and occupational quizzes just to see what they can tell me about myself. Although I know what a quiz online says isn't always true, it sometimes is interesting seeing what my results are and having to think about the way I answer the questions. Sometimes by the way I answer the questions different things about myself do seem to show thought that I haven't really thought about or seen before.

Do you agree that technology helps pave the way to move forward as a civilization? Why or why not?

I do feel that technology does help pave the way to move forward as a civilization. If you look at all the things technology has done for us like from everyday appliances such as refrigerators and the light bulb to generators and oxygen tanks that can help save lives. I believe technology has definitely helped our nation grow. There is so much knowledge that has also been given to us because of technology. We know more, we can live longer but sometimes I feel that technology has also made our nation a little lazy. I feel that if technology went down most Americans wouldn’t know how to live. I feel that although technology definitely has it's advantages for our nation that we take advantage of it and don’t take the time to learn how it works or how to do things without it. I am a lover of technology don't get me wrong. It is just that sometimes I feel that I rely too much on technology that if technology failed on me I wouldn’t know what to do. I also feel that television and video games take up too much of my time. Instead of doing things that are more important to my life such as school or getting out into the world instead of staying cooped up in my room all day watching movies and playing video games. Like I said technology has definitely helped our nation move forward but I wonder what life would be like for people who are completely dependent on technology to live without it for a while. I wonder how I would live without it?