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Case 2 - Ubiquitous Info Access

In this digital age, students have quick and easy access to a plethora of constantly growing sources of information due to the Internet. There are benefits and challenges to having this pool of content readily available. In terms of the classroom, this changes the roles of both the students and teacher and introduces the benefits and challenges in the environment. In terms of the students, ubiquitous information access allows for greater retrieval of different sources of the desired material. Students have the ability to locate, annotate, and organize information much quicker than if they were to so by hand. However, the ability to access such vast amounts of information allows the student to find misinformation, and if they are unable to determine the difference between what is true and what isn't, it could transfer into their work and understanding of the material. In terms of the teacher, this access to information allows the teacher to give the student more control ove...

Case 1 - ISTE Standards

The ISTE Standards are a set of standards for the use of technology in teaching and learning, with different standards for both the student and the teacher. The 21st century is a digital age. Technology is constantly being developed and the ability to better educate using these new technologies has never been greater. There are many ways in which new technology can be utilized to enhance the learning experience. The student standard, "Innovated Designer" stresses this concept. The innovated designer is defined as "students who use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions." This can be related to the 21st Century Skills, a skill set of abilities that are needed in order to succeed in 21st-century society and the workplace. Two of these skills are relevant to the standard in question, those being critical thinking and creativity. These are important skills for this standard beca...
Though politics and foreign relations may be heated today, we have never truly been on the absolute brink of nuclear war as we were in 1962. The Cold War was a period of innovation in terms of our capabilities to make war. The United States and Soviet Union were locked in an arms race of unparalleled proportions, the magnitude of which the modern day cannot compare. By 1962, the US had already fought a war in Korea and was in the middle of the war in Vietnam. The world was an entirely different place and time. The Cuban Missile Crisis changed the US/Soviet dichotomy and our relation to nuclear arms. This topic interests me, as I enjoy learning about the political climate of the time. I feel as though there is nothing comparable in the modern day to what happened nearly 60 years ago. This is a topic is a complex one, with many facets and perspectives, which is why I feel it is important for a student to understand its implications. We would not be where we are today had this near-war ...