User blog:Thenoblerook/Reflecting on Module 6

Jamboard: A New Learning Tool?
In Michell Foster's post for module 6 this week, they discussed how thy used Jamboard as a way to engage their classroom in "whiteboard" learning, which I might want to utilize in the future. Obviously, the biggest problem with the freedom of a whiteboard... is the freedom of a whiteboard. Normally, I don't care about being 'undermined' as a teacher, because I think that a lot of that comes down to how you handle individual students, but when you give a student a whiteboard with full access to write whatever they want, and for it to be shown to the rest of their peers... we've got a potential problem. But being able to get students to engage in group projects and work together to answer questions using an online whiteboard like system is super useful. In college- ever slightly more 'mature' than a high school- we often used google docs as a means of working together in group projects, and that seemed to work fairly well as a group effort. The real question will come down to how easily it is for students to abuse the freedom given to them with Jamboard, but I guess I'll have to check this application out.

Columbus: First Discovery, or Lost Recovery?
In Gillian Brosnan's module 5 discussion (posted two days ago so fair game for me), they state that schools taught that "Colombus discovered America" and that this was a falsehood that their teacher's taught them. They also said that high school portrayed "Wikipedia [as] evil," and that many things "teachers told us has ended up not being true."

My response to the post was something along these lines: When we learn something that ends up later being false, does that mean we were taught a lie? Of course not. We were taught the academic truth of the time, but truth changes as our understanding to knowledge changes around us. It's about always being an active learner in an active world. The fact that we now know that the Vikings discovered America first is a great discovery of our own! But it should not cast doubt upon our former education, but instead offer us an additional learning opportunity going forward. The goal of education is instead giving us the tools required to find information out on our own- to provide critical thinking skills which will help us survive in the future. As I said in my final line in the post, "it's not a flaw in our education system- it's by design."