"Web 2.0 Educator"

  I picked Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis to blog about. Her specialty is teaching and she seems very devoted to it. She seems very well informed on various aspects of technology and she seems to know how to explain to her students how to use these technology devices and why! That is the biggest thing. She makes the students understand why she does what she does. She has such a unique perspective on life and teaching. She definitely seems to have a positive attitude toward technology in the classroom and sees it as being helpful and teaching the students about the real world. I would have to say that I partly agree with her on things that she discusses and yet there are aspects of her blogs I am not totally in agreement with. I do believe that it is important for students to know how to do more things than just prepare for a test, and I do believe that technology is a very helpful and useful resource in the classroom. However, her approach to being so open to change and her willingness toward technology is definitely not the way I feel. I do not feel that classrooms should be completely taken over by all of this technological advanced equipment such as the "Flat classroom boards." These board act as boards as well as desks. I feel like these types of devices are what cause our students to be too focused on technology and not what the lessons in school are. Mrs. Davis seems to have an optimistic view on technology and how helpful it is, but it does not seem to me as if students in today's world are learning as much as they did before and I really feel that it is because of all the distractions they have available to them (i.e. cell phones, computers, etc.) I am not saying technology is not important but sometimes I feel as if it is a reason for students to not have to know so much or retain so much information because they have access to information at their fingertips.

      Her approach to teaching though seems very thought out and effective. She mentioned somewhere in her blog that she has this rule about asking two students before they ask her a question. When reading this I thought this was a very unique way of having students become comfortable working together and learning things on their own without running to her with every single question. This is an approach that as a student I may have found frustrating and harsh because I figured no one else knew better than the teacher, but now as a future teacher I can see why teachers do this and I can understand the importance of it. Mrs. Vicki Davis seemed very educated on technology and open to new ways of teaching her students as the future changes the dynamic of the world and flexibility definitely seems to be an admirable quality in teachers these days. She definitely seemed to be a teacher who was able to connect with the demands of the profession as well as encourage her students to work independently and this is a very important element of teaching.

(Information gathered from Cool Cat Teacher Vicki blog)