Unless we as educators choose to enhance our teaching
methods by embracing the two way medium that is web 2.0, and change the way we
profess upon our students, we seriously run the risk of delaying and destroying
the progress of many educational careers. The practice of employing
instructional methods that function to serve the needs of the institution over
the needs of the individual student has outlived its usefulness, and
e-learning will serve as its successor.
Now before you
advert your eyes from this page, allow me to usher in a new understanding of
e-learning, as I am not referring to the previous stagnant process of static
learning. Instead, consider an
atmosphere where each student communicates thoughtfully to one another, always
taking each other’s opinion into consideration when transforming ideas into
solutions to solve provocative questions.
A place where student creativity is unharnessed, and the expansion of
knowledge is not only catalogued by those who achieve and excel, but also
reflected upon to assist others along their journey to understanding. This place has earned the moniker Web 2.0,
and the best part is when your students go home to complete their homework, the
classroom community is still there for them to interact with and rely upon.
The phenomena of
Facebook and MySpace has consumed all of our children in North America to the
point where their absence from one of these social networking sites means the withdrawal
from the society that they as children have chosen to exist in. Each child who turns on their computer and
enters into one of these or many other social networking sites, enters a
society that is ruled by the people who interact within the group. Each child carefully constructs their online
identity utilizing videos, pictures, podcasts, or whatever media they choose to
depict the image they wish to convey.
Any content that can be construed as outside the norm for the group is
subject to ridicule, therefor each contribution is carefully contrived and
often revisited for updates to ensure a depiction of the wanted image. All knowledge acquired through this creation
and dissemination of information is unguided and often lacks depth and critical
inquiry. This is where we as educators
must intervene to provide integrity to the knowledge consumed by our students,
and we must do it by entering, or at least mirroring the communities that they
have chosen to interact with.
Web 2.0
offers many tools such as: blogging, wiki, podcasting, social communities,
animation programs, and most can be utilized in the classroom. For example, when students blog they are
essentially journaling or recording their thought processes over time which
serves as a touchstone for them to later expound from when applying new
concepts or ideas. The author of the blog is not alone after he submits his
thoughts as blogs also allow readers to comment, and this contribution can be
from other students or teachers or even larger audiences depending on the
settings employed. The result being a final product derived from a community
contribution that created their own understanding for a given problem or
situation.
In embracing
this idea I have created a lesson plan utilizing a Web 2.0 program called Edmodo, which will incorporate group blogs, and Prezi posters into the lesson
plan. Edmodo allows me to upload a library of videos, slides and links for all
the information that the students will require which enables me to keep them
from straying into parts of the web that would prove harmful to their
learning. The group blog allows each
group of five to collaborate on a piece of writing that will be constantly
improved upon as they expand their knowledge on the subject, and this writing can
be edited together while in the safety of their own homes. The use of Prezi will allow those students
who best convey their understanding of a subject through forms of expression
other than writing, to offer motivated contributions to the group. To sum up, if you are on the fence about
embracing technology, I encourage you to at least try Edmodo. It is a tool
which allows parents to watch but not interact, allows students to interact as
they would on facebook, and because of this as a teacher you get to observe all
of the contributions by each group member. You are therefore privy to
information that allows you to assist individuals in their educational
development that you might not have been privy to using old techniques of group
work.
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