C4T # 1

About Allanah King's Blog Post on The Horizon Report
Alannah King has a blog on EDU Blogs entitled "Life Is Not A Race To Be First Finished". In one of her most recent posts, King discusses the 2012 K-12 Horizon Report. The Horizon Report is a group of educational leaders from different parts of the world that set goals and try to foresee what education will be like in the near future. King is a member of their advisory board. In her post, King discusses "key trends" of changes in teaching that will be beneficial for both the teacher and the student. For example, students should be given access to a computer and the internet at all times. Online and hybrid learning, along with collaboration, are a good way to get students actively involved with technology. In the next 5 years, the Horizon Report states that students will be working with cloud and tablet computing, mobile phones and apps, collaborative environments, game-based learning, natural user interfaces, and more.
I believe that the Horizon Report is right on track, and that the use of technology is important to incorporate in young children's education. Portable electronic devices used as study tools are a good idea to make sure busy students have time for their schoolwork as well. There will soon be new advanced forms of technology that are beyond our wildest dreams. We need to prepare ourselves and our students for the wonderful tools that await us in the future.
About Allanah King's Blog Post on "Any Questions"
After reading a second blog post by Allanah King, I am now informed of a website that allows you to chat live with a librarian to help you find the answer to any question. It prevents you from ending up on an unreliable website like Wikipedia, and teaches you the valuable skill of learning to better navigate a website. This is a great tool for teachers and students alike, and is much better than simply google searching for more information. As Miss King puts it: google can "lead you to dark places on the internet." This is a very interesting program I had never heard of before and I intend to check it out the next time I need to do research and find more information on a specific topic.