Seeing is Believing

I may be infringing on a camera company’s slogan with that title, but I don’t care: technology is like having access to an invisibility cloak, allowing me to do whatever I want - so long as everyone else also does whatever they want along with me. The Internet is a riot, but it is also like being caught up in a riot

I used the title above – “seeing is believing” - because I’ve been thinking a lot about the spirit of that statement since starting this whole teaching thing. I don’t think of myself as much of a ‘presenter’ of information, and they ‘new style’ of teaching seems to be pushing towards less talky-talky and more dooey-dooey. (That is, get the kids doing hands-on, engaging stuff in all subjects.) In this respect, it would seem it is important that students “see” in order to “believe”. This ties into technology in an important way: when the professor used his cell phone to show the Google map of Canada in regards to the HBC episode, then displayed it on the document reader, I initially thought, Overkill! Yet with seeing is believing in mind, I began to think about this more deeply. I know my basic geography, but when the statement of the Canada/U.S. border was in the video, my brain did not graphically represent it for me. I essentially ignored the information because for me to ‘get it’, I would have had to have sat there and, on my own, squinted my eyes shut real tight, set up the map in my minds-eye, and then etched the lines - but the effort, time, and silly face I’d be making was not worth it to me. So, if the technology had not been available to, in a few seconds, present that image (via IPhone on the document reader, or even just on a browser), I would have bypassed that portion of the lesson if in fact the lesson had been a social studies one, for example. In this case, the lesson was using the technology, but for a middle-years student I can see the abilities inherent in technology aiding how students ‘see’ and ‘believe’ information in their own minds. So the teacher yaps, the kids nod off or daydream (or flick those damn erasers at each other!) and then they leave not having learned anything. (I’ve left university classes after two hours thinking I’ve learned nothing.); or, the teacher supplements the lesson with all sorts of do-dads, images, and interactive activities and the students then can take in ideas and facts in various forms, making their own connections as they go along.

(Note: though I do not yet get royalties, I’d like to push questia.com! It actually is a really good resources for articles for assignments!)