C4T #1 Summary

C4T #1 - 9/4/11
I was assigned to comment on Brian Crosby's Learning is Messy blog. His most recent post was about him being invited to be on the panel for the New York Times sponsored "Schools for Tomorrow - Bringing Technology Into The Classroom Conference." He was pointing out that educators aren't on the discussion panel and are generally only invited to be members of the audience and ask questions. This makes no sense to me. Why wouldn't then want teachers on the panel? They would be the most beneficial to any discussion on technology in the classroom. In my comment, I pointed this out and unfortunately, received no response. However, my eyes were opened, as I didn't even realize that, in a way, education was being cheated in another way.

C4T #1, post 2 - 9/10/11
There was no recent post when I went back this week. So, I chose to comment on the previous one, entitled "Getting to Know You". This post was well worth the read. Basically, Mr. Crosby was talking about how he gets students in assigned seats for the first quarter. Basically, the first day he lets them pick whatever table they wish to sit at. Most of them wind up being boy tables and girl tables. This year, he wanted a mixture so there were rules to follow for the second day of seating. Each table needed a boy and a girl, also you couldn't sit with people you had already sat with. As the days went on, there would be more students standing around, unsure of themselves.

Mr. Crosby's post was all about inclusion and the fear children have of not being included. He had the students talk about why they feared not being apart of something or why they were scared to sit at tables with people they did not know. This all boiled down to a fear of not being accepted by those students who did not know them. I thought this was an awesome assignment and thought it amazing that Mr. Crosby embraced these feelings the kids have. It's not something that should just be looked over, because negative consequences can come from it.