I am neither Digital Native, nor Digital Immigrant. Instead, I am a digital colonist focused onusing technology to enhance my quest. Modern achievements in communication, remote sensing, and simulationtechnologies feed my inquisitive and scientific approach to everything aroundme.
This approach is the basis of my instructional style: to help students learn and engage theirworld, to understand how it works and what individual relationships to it theymay have. Just as technology aids me inmy personal quest, it plays a prominent and evolving role in my instructionaldelivery.
Howard Gardner highlighted five distinct ways of thinking andlearning. Each of these ways of thinkingwill prepare students to pursue their long term goals. But, before I can assist the students, I mustwork on enhancing each of these five minds within myself.
In general, I feel confident with disciplinary andsynthesizing minds. These are twotraditional views in a scientific approach. I will continue to seek connections and collect knowledge to piecetogether my understanding of more modern phenomena such as string theory or thelarge hadron collider. I will continueto encourage my students to think beyond isolated facts, adding a holisticappreciation to scientific knowledge. Toenhance my personal discipline mind, I will remain current on research throughpublished updates through RSS, Blogs, and Youtube. I intend to incorporate as much currentinformation as possible into my instruction. I will emphasize the fluid nature of science and the revision of basicassumptions about the universe.
I feel next most confident about respectful and ethicalminds. As Science is based oncollaboration, critique, validation, and feedback, respect and ethics areessential. To enhance these minds, Iwill seek out alternate viewpoints, domestic, foreign, oppositional, andother. I will utilize NASA’s DLNservices and online collaborations to reinforce the global nature of scienceand science instruction. I will enrollmy students in online collaborative efforts, such as Voicethread, Wikis, NASA’sReal World/InWorld, Project Globe, and S’COOL
My creative mind is in need of the most attention. Creativity is far more than arts, though itis often difficult to express. Throughthis course, I have explored online tools that tap into creativity withouttechnical skill. Prezi, Glogster,Xtranormal and others to be discovered offer chances for creativity. I intendto continue exploring these options and looking for similar tools to add justthe creative content without cumbersome productions. More importantly, I await the opportunity formy students to show me more ways to use these tools and others as they expresstheir creative minds.
This course laid the framework for five minds. The next step is to thoroughly engage themand guide my students to do the same. Fortunately, there are many resources to assist in this process.
Gardner, Howard. Five minds for the future. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2007. Print.
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