A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute

One of the most interesting articles I have read lately. Thanks to Eda, a colleague, who emailed me this link. Having read the article, I remembered a presentation by a colleague who went to Finland in order to find out about their education system which proved to be the most successful in Europe, probably in the world, too.

Racing in engaging our students to use technology as often as possible in English Language Teaching, it may be a good idea to stop to think. The following sentence was really striking; "Technology is as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There’s no reason why kids can’t figure it out when they get older.” 


So why kill creativity and thinking skills of the students while it is the perfect age for acquisition for everything.


We, teachers, nowadays call the teenagers we are teaching as "digital natives". Are they really? So which one is correct, who is right? Mr. Eagle when he says "Technology is as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There’s no reason why kids can’t figure it out when they get older” or lazy teachers who call the teenagers "digital natives"?


I will share my opinion on the subject above later but please read the following article about Waldorf School in Silicon Valley first.


Here it is; 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes

Bloom's Taxonomy

Here are different interpretations of Bloom's Taxonomy and taxonomic levels for the interested.  Digital and visual taxonomy levels are really interesting.

Here it is

Schools kill creativity

I cannot agree more. Why is uniformity so necessary for free minds?

A great speech by Steve Jobs

ELT 2010 Istek Surprise

I participated the first day of ELT 2010 Istek and was very surprised to find out that most internet sites and the widgeds presented by the speakers have already been used in our school by the teachers and the students.
We have been using blogs for a long time, most classes have their own blog sites administered by their teachers. We have regularly used voicethread application for speaking homework for the last four years and all our worksheets and most materials are already online. We keep directing our students to useful websites and engage them on the internet, too.
Some of my colleagues and I were there to see the innovations in language teaching. We were surprised when we found out most of those were new to the majority of the teachers attended. While chatting during the breaks and after the last plenary session we were proud to be going ahead of many schools and teachers in Istanbul and Turkey.
Thanks colleagues for your being such hard workers and open-minded teachers.