Discussion 1 - Disruptive Innovation (5305)

Technology does give us endless possibilities but we have to know how to use them as tool and do it correctly.

I like what Clayton Christensen said about technology being disruptive and how it affects  the marketplace. He talked about why disruptiveness is a virtue. He said that when using new technology it needs to be a better quality than in the past and old lower in price/cost than it was previously.  He goes on to say something like the transformation of technology has gone from things that used to be complicated and expensive and then it is affordable and accessible so that more people have access to it.  

This makes me think about how the phone has changed.  In the past “car phones” were in the car and only businessmen used them.  They were expensive and had to be hooked up to the car and were very expensive to use.   Fast forward to the phone today and now we all have phones. They don’t have cords, we don’t have to be in the car to use them, the plans are cheaper.

Michael Horn says, “Every student has different learning needs at different times.”  The three things that people agree on when it comes to learning styles. He said, “people learn at different paces, every student brings different levels of background knowledge into a learning experience, we all have different working memory capacities or aptitudes and therefore can absorb information in different way and different rates.” (Horn, 2013)  If we agree on this and we know this, why aren’t we teaching differently?

This reminds me of the quote by Ignacio Estrada, “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”

I see this every day in my classroom with four year old students.  Some students are ready to come to school for a half day and other students aren’t ready at all.  Some students have been prepared by their parents and know there are rules at schools and have the support at home.  Some students just go with the flow. Others throw a fit, cry, scream, and won’t do as they are told. Some fall asleep, some play nicely with others, some want to be first all the time, some are just happy-go-lucky little humans.

In the Blended Learning video he talks about rotations.  We do that kind of thing in Pre-K. I have centers that are different learning styles and one is technology.  The technology is a tool to assist with learning not a method, trend, or fad. Since all students learn differently, they need more options. Using technology is a helpful tool that could motivate students.  Students need to connect real life in the class and out of the classroom.

I like that he mentioned about starting backwards.  That is what we do when planning activities for the students in Pre-K.  When we are planning we think about different questions. What is the purpose?  What are they going to learn? What do you want them to get out of this? What vocabulary do we want them to know?  What is the best use of the time allotted? We try to individualize the learning so we incorporate the audio and visual learners so that everyone has a chance to learn their way.

REFERENCES:

Clayton Christensen Institute. (2014, June 05). Part 6 -- Technology as a Disruptive Force in
Education. Retrieved November 20, 2018,
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ENX-GTUf4&feature=youtu.be.

Edmentum. (2013, March 05). Disrupting Class - Part 3: Disruptive Innovation in
Education. Retrieved November 20, 2018,
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX2hOF5YkfQ&feature=youtu.be

Edmentum. (2013, March 05). Disrupting Class - Part 4: Blended Learning.
Retrieved November 20, 2018, from https://youtu.be/-TGmqeWprqM

Horn, M. & Staker, H. (2005). Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve
Schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand.