Hi Colleagues, I have been convinced about the Social Learning Theory of Bandura for some time now. However it was more at the abstract level, that was because we needed to use models and theories in our assignments. In reading some of your blogs, I am also seeing how you are also internalizing these models and theories and using them in your daily lives and to understand and shape your role as a Reading Specialist. For example, Roland uses modelling and motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) in encouraging and developing his children's love of reading.
Another aspect of my recent encounters with Social learning and Modelling occured while looking at a movie called Julie and Julia. It was based on the lives of two women who used technology to document an important part of their lives and also to help in their self actualization. Julia, around 1947 was relieving her boredom in France by attending a Cordon Bleu institute, and prouducing a cookbook, which she later published, called The Joy of Cooking. This she did by using the typewriter, the technology of her time. Julie, a twentifirst centuary office worker relieved her boredom by recreating Julia's recipies and, could you believe it... she posted a blog after each cooking session. The technology of our time.
This activity gave her a feeling of fullfilment at the end of the day, her husband was also a happy man, he enjoyed all that was made. It also cleared her thoughts, gave her something to do that was meaningful, eventually producing her version of Julia's cookbook called, The Art of French Cooking, which was eventually published. Does this have implications for our classrooms and our personal lives? Do we have the tecnology in our schools and are we using it? Do we have it and we do not know how to use it? Are we offering our students the opportunities to use new tecnologies to self actualize in the classroom setting? This is something to think about.
Observing Julie and Julia's self actualization process has inspired me to persevere with my blogging and other new tecnologies that I have been learning in this new course. I want to introduce them in my classroom so that my students could also engage in a more meaningful self actualization process. Thank you to my teaching crew at UWI, my colleagues and to Julie and Julia.
Your questions had me thinking. I believe that even though technology is available in the schools many of the teachers are afraid and or unwilling to go through the process of setting up the technology in the classroom when they have to remove it at the end of the session. You see, our classes are not technology ready. In many schools we have one lab and only the IT teacher has access to it with the classes he/she is teaching. Of course you can find a way to integrate its use within the curriculum, but according to the socio-economic level of your students, this too can be challenge. This however should not prevent us from trying. The technology is available and we should make every effort to use it and more importantly, to give our students the opportunity to use it.
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