Auto-didacticism

When a person uses a tool to learn on their own they are able to explore the world in a much wider way.  The internet can also be used for projects and activities in the classroom. As I said in my first post, I used the internet as a major source of learning for a year. I still do it now. If I hear something that catches my interest on the television or in conservation or books I will look it up later and read about it. Reading about something or experiencing it can be valuable. For example, learning about Buddhism in high school, a friend and I decided to go and visit a temple and learn from the monks. We went to the Chuang Yen Monastery in New York and combined the knowledge the monks gave us with the knowledge we got in class, helping us with an assignment to attempt to live Buddhist for a month and tell of our experiences.  

In the American Life article it is said people use the internet to draw attention to issues. If this is true that people learn about problems that the world faces from the pages of information that they see on their screens. The internet is also used as a way for the people that want to get these problems out in the open more support and communicate with other members.  The internet is the fastest way to do it. The implication is that the internet is a powerful tool and it can be used to do many different activities and assignments. If teachers used technology to enhance learning instead of using it as a crutch or ignoring it completely then they would have more well rounded students.

Teaching/Learning

In my experience, a great learning experience is someone that values the learning differences of each student and makes the classroom experience engaging. Various types of activities can be used to keep the interest going. One year I was not going to school in the traditional sense and only had class for four hours a week so I was encouraged to use the internet to learn about whatever I wanted. If I heard about  something that peaked my interest then I would research it and give a brief report on the subject. It was a great way to learn since I had one on one interaction with the teacher. Another classroom experience that I found highly enjoyable was my senior year English class. Several kids in that particular class were taking it for graduation credit and did not care about school since they were not going on to college, so the teacher was left with a challenge on how to make the class interesting. He would connect the book to our lives, creating lessons that were interactive and significant to us. If the book we were reading was about life skills he would teach us life skills at the end of the unit or if relevant at the time it was brought up, like how to manage a mortgage or the steps to fixing a patch a wall. At the end of the year students were to give lessons to the class on skills that they knew such as building steps, or replacing a part to a car engine. The challenge was that we had to relate it back to one of the four books we had read.

The most memorable teaching experience I had was when I was teaching a group of skiers and we were working on race technique. My students mostly  have various mental disorders ranging from ADHD to schizophrenia, with some amputees at various times, so making the lesson interesting is key. One of them was really struggling with the lesson I got the others to help me show him by making the lesson into a giant game of follow the leader. After repeating this game a few times, I sent the rest of the group down with my partner and asked the student to ski in front of me and show me what he learned. After a few mistakes he was able to demonstrate the technique correctly and even beat me to the lodge.

It is hard of teachers to get the information they are trying to get across and keep the lesson interesting. That is the most challenging thing, I think. I always look for some way to make it fun and interactive but educational. I have had some teachers that have done this, but most of them did not creating an atmosphere that was stifling to the kids that were more creative and learned more hands on creating problems in school and if it is too creative the kids who are to structured will have issues. There needs to be balance.