Making Changes
There are many voices in the world of educational technology and with the ability to communicate globally, I have learned more from these folks than I ever would have had the opportunity to do in the past. In the past, I would enroll for coursework and read about what leaders in edtech are thinking and discuss these thoughts with my classmates. Today, I had the opportunity to hear directly from Will Richardson in a webinar sponsored by Discovery Education. During the webinar, I could post comments and questions that were addressed by the presenter or moderator on the spot.
No longer do I have to wonder where things are going - I can see it for myself. These thoughts bring me to think about our elementary students in the same way. We continue to deliver information to them that may or may not be relevant. Information is changing so rapidly and through the read/write web we have the chance to expose them to the latest information on all kinds of topics.
Should students be required to memorize static information? Will they really remember it? Do they have to remember it? Isn’t the person that can locate accurate information as smart as (if not smarter than) the person that knows it by heart? Should we be continuing to deliver information or should we be teaching students how to access information, which is practically at their fingertips?
Filed under: Learning From and
I think students still need to be taught information, not just where to find it. They still need a foundation that can be used to make intelligent choices about what they are finding on the web.
I think the vast majority of our students are still not as connected as Will Richardson suggests…even many of his blogs, read by perhaps millions, have only a handful of comments.
I’m not sure that most students would get a significant and meaningful amount of feedback yet by learning mostly through the read/write web - for example, posting their English paper online for feedback from people all over the world. I’m guessing that after a week, the student would pull their paper back off the web, with few to no comments, and hand it to their good old English teacher or classmate for some comments.
I think the problem with the read/write web is it is not personal. Why would I want to read a random English paper on the web if I already complain about reading them for the students I know and care about at school? I’m certainly not going to spend my very precious “free” time looking at a paper written by a student on the other side of the earth just because the technology is there to do it…