Teachers Update

Samantha Levine
11/4/09
Current Event Fourteen

On Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 in Irish Times, based in London, UK, the article Here’s the proof that you can teach an old educator new tricks. This article is talking about how educators that have been teaching for a long time can learn new learning styles and how to integrate technology into lesson plans. The writer of this article uses a mother and daughter as an example, since both of them are teachers at Christ King Secondary School. Mary Hurley who has been a teacher for forty years decided to go back to school after her husbands’ death and her daughters’ strong persistence. She decided to do her thesis on school leadership and in doing so she was introduced to engaging with computers. By using computers for her thesis, she also gained knowledge of how to use databases, charts, advanced statistics, and Excel. Mary also used the computer to gain insight on education around Ireland and has come to the understanding of how important each school and place is linked with others, for example she gain knowledge of not only Irelands schools, but the world as well.
Mary “feels that students and teachers now treat each other like real people instead of the hierarchical relationships that used to dominate. This is a good platform, she says, for schools and students to take on changed circumstances together”. This was all brought upon because of technology. Now, Mary is aiming to understand and master iMovie, which is a program to make movies. I do believe that teachers should learn new material so they can incorporate it into the lesson plan, otherwise students may become bored due to out of date materials or lesson plans.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2009/1201/1224259786971.html