Word of the Day: Curiosity

While browsing through Flickr before writing this blog I found a quote from William A. Word that said “Curiosity is the wick of learning”. I believe that curiosity is the wick of all learning. Without curiosity why would you want to learn? I also believe that technology provokes curiosity in learning academically and socially which then technology can also assist the students to explore their curiosity. I know that sentence is full of the word curiosity but allow me to break it down for you.

                “Technology provokes curiosity…” this is the first bit of that crazy sentence that holds very relevant information to understanding my concept of thinking. Technology is new and an exciting part of our thriving culture. Technology draws the attention of children without a lot of work. Therefore representing that children just want to explore and play with technology, all types of technology. But the main piece of technology that I think really catches children’s attention is the computer. There are numerous things that children can do on this one piece of technology. Just like Mimi Ito says in her video students are constantly on the computer socializing and some are even exploring some topics educational without the push from a parent or a teacher. So what should this say to us as soon to be educators? Well I think it screams “USE THE COMPUTER AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WITHIN YOUR CLASSROOM!!!!!” This leads me to the second half of that sentence.

                The next part of that science “….academically and socially which then technology can also assist the students to explore their curiosity.”  I think this was the message that Mimi Ito was getting at in her video. Students use technology constantly. Whether they are using it for socialization such a blogging, or in the form of “geeking out” students are constantly involved with the computer. So why not use this to motivate students in the classroom. As teachers let’s combine the use of socialization and geeking out on the computer as a way to motivate and explore the student’s curiosity. For example, since they are so interested in the socialization aspect on the computer you could have them research the development of socialization sites (ie: facebook) and then have them develop a youtube video on its history (ie: the “geeking out” part). By having the students do this simple assignment, you have already touched on the subject of history. Just imagine what other subjects you could integrate into this lesson to make it much more dynamic. The use of technology is endless in the classroom, and teachers, we need to wake up smell the coffee and learn how to incorporate this into more everyday use in our lessons. This is just one explain of what people and students can learn through technology.