Exit Slip

The group's presentation today on chapter 7 was presented in a very interactive and engaging discussion, which I enjoyed. The cons that we discussed, which include less social interaction, isolation, digital divide, and equal standards, were cons that I remembered from the reading.
And, I gained a new perspective from a comment that Caley made on the research mentioned in this chapter. The research that was discussed found that people are more prone to depression and loneliness because they are on the computer all day. However, Caley's insight, which was that these people may already be predisposed to depression regardless of the amount of time they spend on the computer, was something I initially did not think about when reading this.
The pros that were listed, which include that it is engaging, promotes individual responsibility, universal access, which promotes just-in time learning, customized learning, and it caters to all different learning styles, were pros that I had already acknowledged and agree with. The question I was asked to discuss is, how can we individualize education within the classroom? First of all, the main way to implement this in your classroom is by basing your planning and instruction on your children's individual needs, interests, and abilities. This is a very straight foward answer and in my opinion, it is an obvious answer; however, there are many teachers out there that plan and implement instruction without individualizing it to their students, which is obviously ineffective.
The contemporary issues briefly discussed today are issues that I was aware of. Kelly's contemporary issue that she discussed was very sad, and it makes me think that social networking and new technologies can be dangerous. Like Kelly said bullying will always happen in school but it stops when they go home, but with the internet, bullying continues at home through the internet. This is scary and a huge con to social networking, and I do not know how teachers could enforce this and prevent these type of situations to occur. And, the cool tool presentations were good resources that I could use in the future as an educator.