Reflection on Generation IM (required)

Wow, I am still amazed at how many options there are out there. I know that most of this we have begun to discuss in class, however, I am also amazed at how savvy students are at using technology. For me, I still am not confident that I know much about things such as blogging, wikispaces and podcasts. However, the students in my future classroom will most likely know quite a bit about various technological tools. I would never have been able to construct a blog in 4th grade, however, teachers are using tools such as blogs everyday. I think it is also interesting that the shift in education has turned from a "memorization" method to a "critical thinking" method. I wish that I had learned this when I was in elementary school. I know, especially in math, I am very stuck in the "traditional" style of math where I memorized a list of rules and followed them. However, I have found that many of the things I have memorized are just facts in my mind. I do not know why I followed those specific math rules. This is a problem that I must face now as critical thinking is becoming more and more important. Therefore, in this way, I think that technology is a valuable tools for kids to learn how to think out of the box and to creatively solve problems in the real world.