In the classroom they use iPads to do research and then Friday they share what they have found with everyone in the class. They call it “going public.” I think that was a great idea so everyone gets to know the information that the other students found. The teacher also wants them to be able to make connections to the outside world and other things in their lives. The teacher also tries to let them be independent but then she is also right there to help them out or talk about what they saw. This teacher took small groups and they looked at information on the iPads. I think using iPads is great for students because it is more user friendly. Most kids are already exposed to using touch screen phones so using an iPad is easy for them.

I think researching topics does make students smarter, but just having the technology does not make you smarter. I think that knowing how to use the technology does improve your abilities. However we can not just rely on the technology so if the students are just copy and pasting like the Morgan article talked about. They did not say how the students were recording information but I am sure the teacher was helping them. Students need to know how to use the tools they are given to successfully learn. I think having students start young with technology and being able to use research is great. This will definitely improve their knowledge and improve their technological skills.

Distributed cognition is working together on something you could not have done without each other. I think this describes a classroom perfectly. The students would not know all the information without the teacher. The teacher might not have thought about the questions or the topic more in depth without that student question. In a classroom everyone has to work together in order to get all the information. I think technology can make us smarter if when we do not know the answer we look it up and remember it. But if we constantly look up the same thing then it doesn’t make us smarter it makes us rely on the technology. I think in this time right now where our whole education system is on technology it will make us smarter and it will allow us to use the technology more efficiently.

I also think the environment plays a big roll in education learning. The students need to be encouraged to learn new things. Also to be able to retell what you have learned to the other students is another way of learning. Distributed cognition relies on being able to work together. So, if you learn about one thing and another student learns about another thing and they are paired up to talk about it now they both know the information.

The teacher uses a monitoring function while teaching her students. Since they are young it isn’t always beneficial to test them on their abilities. However, monitoring their technological usage helps them use it properly. Also, having sharing time also helps the teacher know if they were on track while they were researching and talking about their lesson.