Summary Post C4T #3

My comment was for Jerrid W. Kruse, a teacher, writer, editor and researcher. His first post that I commented on, "Pseudoteaching with Demos," was about his concern that many teachers and other individuals use demos for science classes and the like, which is, in and of itself, a good thing, but far too often the sole idea of these demos is essentially a form of entertainment, and falls short of any lesson learned. He says these demos have a 'whiz-bang' factor, which of course students are drawn to, but what else do children take from it? That is the question with which Jerrid is concerned.
In my response I told him that I greatly admire the fact that he stated entertainment is not equivalent to engaging, and that we as teachers or teachers-to-be should be readily prepared to differentiate between the two in any given circumstance. I told Jerrid that often I create in my amigination scenarios in which I am teaching the class, and all too often I fail to emphasize the importance of education, and instead emphasize that 'fun-factor' we've grown too accustomed to nowadays. As Jerrid said, we can't let students fall into the habit of wanting to learn only when 'fun' is promised.

My second comment for Jerrid W. Kruse was on his blog post "Edcamp should not be a conference," in which he described something called Edcamp, a conference where essentially a lot of teachers gather together to formulate ideas on how to learn and teach, but not in the same rigid format which people are more often used to. Jerrid said "What I see here is what classrooms & faculty meetings should be like," after explaining that people attending Edcamp aren't acting as "experts" which, in my opinion, is how conferences should be conducted: more layed back and not as stiff, so that creativity can be more easily shared amongst attendees. I told Jerrid that my sister, who is currently doing her student-teaching and will graduate this semester, recently attended a conference which she described as the complete opposite of what Edcamp sounds like: dull, rigid and dragged out, as apposed to Edcamp's laid-back approach, which to me seems more productive.