Thursday, February 10, 2011
Week 5 Impact of Technology
This was an interesting chapter in the book as it explains some of the changes that have happened and are happening to technological processes but seems to only offer suggestions to how to adapt to them. I think the point of technology being a change towards participatory culture was quite relevant. I think this is something we will need to instill in our learners that learning has to be self motivated and even self directed. With the seemingly endless supply of knowledge the "learning by doing" looks to be the direction for learning in the technological world. This world is constantly changing as well which makes the information and it's relevance fluid too. I think this is part of the "learning to know" which she refers to. I think there was a valid point made about this technology being more than the sum of it's parts. With students who only understand a world with all of these new features it is something that becomes hard to explain. Even more amazing is the continual change and development which will make it irrelevant in a few years. Even our own "learning to be" becomes difficult in this new social setting. I think our learners and ourselves are in a serious state of identity crisis within this technological space. It is certainly something we need to embrace to make it relevant to current trends and continue the use of relevant technology in our educational system. In reference to the commercial "to the cloud", another aspect of technological advance, we are in a cloud of knowledge. I think it is getting harder to see where we need to go. Something interesting to the semantics of the internet is the computer to compete on jeopardy next week. It will be interesting to see how "artifical intelligence" does. Hopefully it doesn't take our place.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I found the chapter interesting as well, and marked the section where Jacobs talks about "participatory culture" and "collective intelligence" to go back to, and think more about. It really made me think about education in general, not just with technology, and the importance of helping our learners to take an active role in thinking, learning, and problem-solving, as well as in cooperation and collaboration with others (globally)...after all, we are educating learners who will know a world we can't even yet comprehend, especially with all the technological advances. As you described, the world is ever-changing, and the relevance and fluidity of information we have today is in question. No wonder we are all in, as you call it "identity crisis"!
ReplyDeleteI too will be watching "Watson" but I am not too worried about being replaced. Computers can mimic human thought and speed it up to lightning speed, but I still believe we posses a spiritual nature that cannot be replicated by silicon and gold. Whether that gives us an advantage or no, we shall see! One of the things that I find facinating about teaching kids about computers is in using the computer as a model for kids to think metacognitively. Although it is the computer that mimics us, kids can think about their logic or thought organization by comparing themselves to the process and structure of operating a computer.
ReplyDeleteI think the computer has a great capacity for developing metacognition skills. Primarily when one is blogging, tweeting or social facebooking one is expressing, reflecting and partaking in a thinking skill by the writing process. Is it deep or thought provoking, not sure, but it is commentary. I find myself checking to make myself clearer- organizing my thought processes each time. For middle school students there can be a more honest personal expression on Facebook versus the social contest of the school environment.
ReplyDeleteI like how you talked about learners as currently having an "identity crisis". Do you mean in terms of their identity as a netizen? Am I correct in saying this? In my blog I talk about how the Internet is creating a common identity as global netizens which is and will transcend cultural barriers.
ReplyDeleteI also found the chapter quite interesting. One of the things I find myself doing this year is re-evaluating how I teach, because with one-to-one computing my students can answer their own questions. They don't need me to be the "source of all information" - which is challenging in science, as sometimes my information can be outdated - even if I read it yesterday! There's a lot of fact-checking that at first made me uncomfortable, but I am now coming to embrace. I find myself asking students to look up the answers to their questions and let the class know when they've found it, displaying the YouTube video that makes the information more entertaining that a student just happened to show me, or respond to me via email just to get a pulse on what they thought about something. This type of teacher-student collaboration is new, and I am finding I really enjoy it, but adaptation is difficult.
ReplyDelete