Quotes

Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important. ~ Bill Gates



People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines... There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.


College Professor, Robert C. Wess (1980) writes “(To wean) students away from writing merely to please the teacher, (it) create in them a growing awareness of what makes writing work in larger contexts” (1). This indicates that when students begin writing in the primary grades, they are taught that the teacher is the main and only audience. They learn to write for his or her benefit alone. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to generate a new goal, one that teaches young children a new definition of “audience”. Audience ranges from a single reader (i.e. the teacher) to a community full of diverse individuals. Teaching children that people in the community around them take pleasure in reading their work is extremely valuable. This can change both their perception of worth and understanding of what makes writing “good”. (7)

According to teacher Christine Pederson (1993), when students perceive that the teacher is the sole audience, the result is an “arid wasteland of purposeless sentences and paragraphs” (Dollieslager 1993). Empty assignments are neither real nor meaningful to young writers. . . .




King & Stovall (1992) write, “Publishing, like performing a play, is a tangible form of communication,” and students understand this.



"Effective learning in the classroom depends on the teacher's ability ... to maintain the interest that brought students to the course in the first place" (Ericksen, 1978, p. 3).












.