summer learning

I guess I knew that learning was changing, but now I think I have the words to describe how.

While reflecting on this past set of blogs, wikis, currikis and taggings, I feel more out of place than ever.  I have to make a very concious effort to write down the steps, watch the examples over and over, and I feel that I am just learning the tools, not really using them effectively.  My empathy for someone who struggles to learn a new skill has grown by leaps and bounds. 

When I read in http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/ that our goal is not to just learn the tools, but to make “the tool a medium for mastery of standards based learning”  I felt better.  The goal is the same as school 1.0, but how we facilitate and synergize mastery has changed.  I hope I can keep up with this!

I also liked a line from David Warlick at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/02/27/more-on-school-20/ : “teachers become learners”.  He’s not kidding.  In order to embrace new tools, not only do we have to learn them with mastery, we also need them to help fabricate collaborative knoweldge as it is produced.  Learning is for everyone, and teaching is a multiple set of pathways, not just one way.

Ann

It seems like we shouldn’t have to say this, but to paraphrase Dr. O’Connell in the “Missed Opportunity”article, using social networking constructively needs to be taught! 

This becomes more clear with the reasoning presented in “A Briefing for Educators: Online Social Networking Communities and Youth Risk” at http://www.techlearning.com/techlearning/events/techforum06/MichelleRussell_ABriefingforEducatorsOnlineSociaNetworking.pdf

Nancy Willard makes a strong argument for educating school personnel (admin and teachers) and parents about the potential for problems so schools can be proactive about using social networking in positive ways.  One of her three primary concerns is about the way kids make choices, because they are not able to link action and consequence in the invisible online world.  And, in the absence of parental guidance, supervision and education, those choices can go unchecked.   She has great guidelines and legal advice for how to deal with problems before they become real problems.

This Willard article is worth reading.  I intend to share the site with people I work with.

Ann

While Wikipedia seems to be both a good and treacherous learning tool because of its potential for change, through additions and deletions without authority, the article “Internet Encyclopedias Go Head to Head” at http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html , seems to answer the above question.

 Based on their research at Nature, the number of errors in Wikipedia is not that much greater than those in typical encyclopedias.  As a literacy tool then, its disadvantages pale in comparison to its advantages.  No one should accept any one source as the ultimate authority, so it teaches everyone to check primary sources (that’s plural)  and it teaches us to collectively determine what is good knowledge and what is bad.  That’s one of the basic 21st century skills David Warlick mentions.

So, I would have to say there is definitely a place for Wikipedia in the learning tool box.  Kids can research and trace back to primary sources, form an opinion, and defend that opinion based on a body of knowledge, not just one source.  They can compare and contrast ideas and look critically at how information is used, and how it is written.  Those are all good things.

Ann

After reading Ferdig and  Trammel’s article summarizing how/why to use blogs to deliver content, I have two take-aways.  First, their reasoning reaffirmed what everyone is saying about what a great reflective tool blogging can be, especially when learners are collaborating on making sense and meaning out of their work.  Also, I came away with a better understanding of why blogs are superior to posting in other ways, due to the ability to use hyperlinks to connect the reader with the source of the author’s opinion or to related content.  I hadn’t thought about that, but that’s the power of the web, and blogging capitalizes of this – sorting, resorting and connecting information in new ways as a person processes it.

Ann