I am a digital native, but I do not believe that teachers can be replaced by computers. Computers are not instructors, but tools used to help aid teaching and learning. I do, however, think that teachers need to change up their methods of teaching to adapt to today's students. Teachers are only as effective as their methods, and when our students change, so too must our practices. If a person wishes to be hired as a teacher in the future, they must be willing to implements technology in their classes.
There are some subjects that require one-on-one teacher-student interaction, like learning to play an instrument or a particularly tricky math problem. Each student may need the material to be explained to them multiple times in different ways before they can understand what it is they need to do to succeed. Computers cannot facilitate this, but teachers can. A teacher can see what a student needs in order to help them succeed. In terms of math classes, computers may not be able to detect cheating (like having a cheat sheet or a calculator) that a teacher would easily be able to stop.
I like the idea of offering online classes to high school and college students who have a choice to take them, but I don't think that they will replace regular classroom settings permanently. I have taken several online classes so far, and I can say with certainty that I much prefer being in a real classroom versus a virtual one. It's so easy to forget about a class you don't attend regularly, especially when students have a full class load. Additionally, school districts like GRPS may see online classes as the future of education, but they need to take into account their school population. Do most of their students have home computers or the internet? I know where I am teacher assisting, many students would be completely unable to participate in online classes because they don't own a computer. If online classes are really the way education is headed, and effort must be made to get these students connected somehow. I feel as though that would be a major obstacle for many districts.
As for the original question regarding my thoughts on the opinions posed in the videos, I feel like having a more technology-based high school experience may have helped, but only to a certain extent. My high school was by no means underfunded and we therefore had a lot of technology in the classrooms already. I recall working with online stock market games, video editing software, and website-building programs, just to name a few. Some classes, like a particularly boring history class I took, could have been much more engaging for me personally if they had departed from the typical lecture/note-taking format, and online or technology-based resources could have helped. Some courses were just fine as they were. Would I have rather had online classes? Definitely not. Would more technology in the classroom have been a good thing? Of course.
I agree with your point that many subjects such as math and art just cannot be replaced through online learning, and that the instructor itself is a necessity. Math needs the teachers guidance to be successful, and the students need the practice with guidance to be able to figure out the goal of the problem. Though technology like the Kahn Institute or blended models helps support learning, it should not be used at the one way to instruct our students.
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