What color is the sky in your universe?

My nephew is 4 years old. He recently started pre-school. About two weeks prior to him beginning school, he told his mother he did not want to go to school because the bigger kids would beat him up and throw him out. We have no idea where this thought process came from. He watches a lot of cartoons, but nothing seemed to show anything like that. When asked why he thought that, he said he just knew it.

I know this isn't an example about an educational topic, but it does go to show that people, especially children, collect data and refer to it in the most interesting ways. It is our jobs as educators and even just as adults to help them know what to do with all the information they are presented with.

The first project I had this semester for my multimedia class was to read 5 different research articles and write about them. One article I found, Using Popular Films to Enhance Classroom Learning talked about a study using various historical facts and historical movies in learning. Of course, many of you know that Hollywood does tend to elaborate historical facts to make them more dramatic to the viewers. They get away with this by saying "this is based on a true story/incident" and it is left to the viewer to decipher truth from fiction. Disney is very good at elaborating, I won't even go into my opinion of Pocahontas and their version of Jamestown and the events surrounding.

Anyway, it is a hard road for educators these days. Not to say it was always easier 50 years ago, but I do think that many students come into the classrooms with so much other information from various sources, it is hard to realize you need to almost retrain them to learn the facts.

Watching this video made me see how easy it is to get facts and preconceived notions mixed up. Towards then end even I was a little confused about explaining the phases of the moon. It was obvious that when the teacher brought in the models to class that the students understood better. But some of the students had difficulty seeing the models and it was obvious that even after the demonstration Heather still didn't quite get all of the information. This is where I could see bringing in different tools, something that wasn't just presentational but more interactive. This might mean more initial research on the teacher's part to find the right tools, but hopefully it would create a better dialogue between the students, helping them to explain to one another under the instructor's guidance.

As the internet grows and so does media and other information sources, outside the classroom learning will also grow. As educators we cannot control what information students recieve when they are not in our "classroom" (real or virtual). We can do our best to make sure they have the most up to date information, continue to create dialogue with them and keep them interactive with the correct information. This means teachers cannot just look at the information in a text book and repeat it to their class. We need to be actively involved with our students and get them actively involved in the learning process by any and all means available.

You will notice I am doing my little part by adding a modle of the moon phases to my blog. Found it online and it doesn't explain much, but at least fun to check out.