My Philosophy on Education

Students are people first. It is almost impossible to be a person in our society and not be in contact with some form of technology. As members of the Net Gen, my students are most likely going to be constantly exposed to all forms of technology. According to Oblinger and Oblinger, children under six, on average watch two hours of screen media, half have used a computer, and twenty-seven percent of them spend more than an hour online each day (Oblinger, Chap 1). The thing to remember is that not all students will have the same access. Oblinger and Oblinger also point out that ethnicity, socio-economic status, even parental education can cause varying degrees of access to certain forms of technology (Oblinger, Chap 1).

My job as an educator will first be to assess how much time my students spend interacting with technology, which technologies, and the competency in those technologies. Every class will be different and therefore the needs will be different. By having a grasp on their familiarity, I will be able to provide technology instruction that will help refine basic skills as well as higher level applications.

Also by assessing my students from the beginning I can better use technology to suit their individual learning styles. The Net Gen has already been categorized as portraying certain learning styles such as attentional deployment, fast response times, inductive discovery, and visual-spatial skills (Oblinger, Chap 1). Technology offers such an array of medias that can help better present the same information in a multitude of ways. This makes my instruction more student and learning centered.

Often times, technology is used in the class room to teach minor tasks like making a power point or a graph. It is essential to teach students these skills, but that is only a starting point. It is somewhat silly to focus entire lessons around building something in Microsoft Excel. While that is an important trade to know, that should not be the point of the lesson. In two, five, or ten years, that software will become obsolete when it is replaced by another, newer version or model. My students will not have a teacher standing over them to instruct them on which button does what. I want to use technology as a way to answer questions, any question. I want to provide my students with a strong sense of questioning and answering skills. “Questions enable the next generations to make changes in society, to invent new and better ways of doing things” according to Jamie McKenzie. By instilling these qualities, they will be able to transcend ever-changing technologies to elevated applications of those technologies.

I think the biggest feature I want to infuse into my students would be how technology can be used to change the world around them. Thanks to the diversity of technology, the Net Gen has been exposed to so much difference that surrounds us in the world (Oblinger, Chap 1). Technology has made them more connected to one another with the use of email, chats, texting, and the like (Oblinger, Chap 1). I want to challenge my students to think and reflect about how they can use these tools to make not only their school work better, but also their lives. How can they work together for a greater good? These are ideals shared by the Net Gen; hopefulness, change, and optimism (Oblinger, Chap1). These are amazing attributes to be able to work with as a teacher, and I hope to develop them to their fullest.

Works Cited.

Oblinger, Diana and Oblinger, James. Educating the Net Generation. Educase. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/Resources/EducatingtheNetGeneration/Introduction/6059

McKenzie, Jamie. Questioning as Technology. Educational Technology Journal. Vol 12, Issue 8. Aprill 2003. Retrieved from

K-12 News from Detroit

This article hit me hard. Detroit is going through so much with the collapse of the car industry and so many awful sports teams. There is not a lot of good energy going into the area at all. The article discussed the possibilities of 23 Detroit Public Schools being closed after the 2008-2009 school year. This would displace 7, 500 students and potentially lay off over 600 teachers. All this comes at the hands of a $305 million deficit in DPS finances. There is also talk of another 30 schools being shut down at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year. That is roughly 50 schools in two years.


This massive of an interruption to the school system has major implications, especially for the students. The article highlights some feelings held by students who like their school and do not want to switch. This could have repercussions on the learning environment of the individual students. It is hard enough being a new student. Can you imagine having 7,500 new students? That has implications on the whole class environment as well.


I guess this hit me hard because it drives home the point, once again, that money dictates everything. Obviously there are students to fill the spots at schools being closed. There just is not enough money to provide that kind of education to each student. We want small class sizes and individualized instruction but that costs money. This is a pressure that will not go away anytime soon and I am sure it is going to get worse before it gets better.

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