Voice Thread

Today's assignment was to participate in a Voice Thread by responding to two videos by Ken Robinson.  Ken Robinson is a facsinating person and said many things that really made me think about the style of teaching in our system today. 

I loved Video #1 titled Ken Robinson says School Kills Creativity.  My younger son, a junior in highschool,  is extremely creative.  He enjoys drawing, writing poetry, and playing music just to name a few things.  I discussed with him Mr. Robinson's thought about school killing creativity.  He agreed.  He said that they rarely get to create anything.  There are not many open-ended tasks or assignments.  Teachers are in such a constant frenzy with having to teach to the tests.  Tests dictate everything and students need to be taught how to take those tests.  There's always a right and wrong answer, very black and white.  The grey area where creativity lies (in my opinion) is becoming obsolete.  My favorite quote from this video was that "if your (a student) not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original."    That statement is profound!  We, as teachers, often do not give students the chance to be "wrong."

Mr. Robinson also says that "academic ability dominates our view of intelligence."  Again, a profound thought and I DO see evidence of that in the classroom.   I have a student that appears to be very intelligent when carrying on a conversation, and she can discuss a multitude of different topics thouroughly.  When it comes to her product, she can't produce.  All of her test scores earn a failing grade.  I think that she is very intelligent, but her academic ability is lacking.  I am in a quandry.  I allow her to do some of her assignments orally, but worry about her ability to take a test when she has to.  Again, teaching to the test.  I feel that this student will be able to function in society, but I don't know how she will ever make it through a college/university degree. 

I think the theme of Video #2 is that we need to educate our youth for the future.  OUR future.  He discussed the fact that our education system was designed for a different age and in the past, an education was a must to ensure employment.  That was the purpose of an educaiton.  He thinks that "we are trying to reach the future by repeating the past."  I agree.  Our future is going to look very different from the past.

Lastly, ADHD.  Mr. Robinson said that we live in an age with a lot of stimulation with the advent of new technology.  Our students are stimlated outside of the classroom and are then expected to come into a classroom and "sit still" and "stay on task" when it is boring.  He actually found a correlation with an increase in the diagnosis of ADHD and standardized tests.  WOW!   What's the solution?  I have felt for years that ADHD has been over-diagnosed.  When my son was in preschool, a fellow mother (and teacher) told me that she thought he had ADHD.  I was beside myself.  I shared the information with my sister-in-law who has a PHD in Child Psychology.  At the time, she actually worked with some children diagnosed with ADHD and conducted testing.  She explained to me then (13 years ago) how over-diagnosed ADHD was.  I have to say that I agree with Craig, who in our Voice Thread stated that probably only 10% of those diagnosed actually have ADHD. 

A Voice Thread is a great interactive tool to engage students in a dicussion.  It allows individuals to comment on various topics by recording and/or typing a comment.  I looked at several different Voice Threads and many of them were extremely interesting.  The ISTE NETS T standards which relate to this assignment are one and three.  Using Voice Thread is a great way to promote student reflection and engage students while demonstrating fluency in technology.  A Voice Thread is also a way to communicate information and ideas and collaborate with students.