This is How We Dream!!

Richard Miller’s presentation to the Modern Language Association directly explains the “birth” and “death” of a textbook,and how outdated they are becoming. This is his faculty profile at Rutgers University, Rutgers.edu. He then moves on to detail how his online research of the Virginia Tech shootings was created completely from his computer and without books. I think we all take for granted the technology we literally have at our fingertips. Sure, books are useful, but if it’s pouring down rain or 100+ degrees outside, we don’t have to go to the library. We can walk over to our laptop and reach out across the world to research for a project. As a future teacher of history, I was intrigued to see how he brought together the different aspects of his document on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., including print, sound and visual components. I liked the reference to Dr. King’s dream motto and Miller’s title, “This is How We Dream.” He also shows how the 2008 Presidential Election changes could be seen in real time online. I agree with Richard Miller, a professor at Rutgers, that the process of writing in our culture has changed significantly. No matter what subject you are going to teach, writing is an essential skill students must have and technology must be incorporated into their writing. He really drives the point home about how worthless books have become today, when he says, “you can get it on Amazon for $.59 cents.” He is absolutely right! Your textbooks literally become worth mere cents over a short period of time.

Incorporating images certainly make a message much more powerful. I really love the Dr. King segment he put together. As a history lover, I found it very moving. As he demonstrated on a map of the U.S., this nation, and the world will continue to “go green,” and our news, via paper and books, will become more obsolete. When I begin to actually teach history, I believe it will be extremely beneficial for my students to learn by using the many different venues that are available. My students will be provided the tools necessary to write using multimedia. I plan to use iTunes U, Blogger.com, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other new technology that will be created by the time I graduate. I also think it is a good idea to have student independently insert images, videos and links into their writing assignments. Now that I am actually doing this as a student in this class, I realize the impact it adds to your written text.

Miller has also caught the “iTunes U Fever” that is spreading across university campuses nationwide. So far, this is my favorite multimedia tool that I have learned about. It has such potential for higher education, as well as K-12. I plan to use iTunes U when creating “productions” for my history topics and discussion in the classroom. Using multimedia tools will avoid the “Burpback Education” EDM310 Podcasts of just lecturing non-stop and feeding students the information and then simply giving a test. When creating a fascinating visual display via iTunes U, it will hold the students’ attention, peak their interest, and result in them learning more about it. Also, Miller makes a great point about “ideas not belonging to us individually, but as a culture.” Educators who have this mindset of working as a team and sharing their knowledge seem to be more successful. YouTube has become an essential tool to educators. Miller points out a fundamental change by using YouTube as a multimedia tool. One lesson that he and a colleague posted on YouTube got 9,000 views in 3 months. He makes the argument that had it been written in text, it might come out in 2 years versus 3 months. The pedagogy Free Dictionary field will need inspiring teachers to teach the technology that is just beyond the horizon, and I plan to be one of them. I thought both parts of this video were very intriguing and thought provoking.