Tia_Brown_Web20

"Classrooms tend to encourage and reward individual knowledge stored in the head, not distributed knowledge. They don't often allow students to network with each other and with various tools and technologies and be rewarded for doing so . . . . classrooms tend to narrowly constrain where students can gain knowledge, rather than utilize widely dispersed knowledge."

As educators and budding administrators, your job is to consider the use of these Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. There are clearly some educational benefits, but there may also be constraints in their use...for instance, some or even many of them may be blocked in your school division. What do you think? Is it possible to open up the classroom to these kinds of collaborative tools? If so, how? H ow might Web 2.0 tools change the constraints on student learning that the author seem to see in place in contemporary classrooms. Also note whether you think this constraint applies to your particular class or specialty.

As educators we need to open our minds to new ways of helping our students learn, but I think there are drawbacks to this as well. I think the biggest constraint to using these tools in ones classroom is the fact that many of us do not even know how to use them. The kids know more than we do, which in turn makes it hard for us as educators to put safeguards into place, which is necessary in today's world. The authors spoke to this a little bit in the article saying that it would take time for change to happen due to teachers having to teach themselves about the new learning spaces. I also think school districts would not support us using many of these things in the classroom due to privacy issues and the danger that places on the internet sometimes brings. Along those lines many of the internet acceptable use policies would have to be changed and places that are blocked would have to be unblocked for student access. Then students who are not using this for educational purposes would also have access.

I definitely think using these tools would open up new worlds in education, and that students love learning like this. I loved the part in the article that said "For example, a collection of Flickr with authorial comments and tags certainly does not resemble the traditional essay, but the time spent on such a project, the motivation for undertaking it, and its ability to communicate meaning can certainly be equal to the investment and motivation required by the traditional essay." (Mabrito,Medley) Students work hard on these projects and certainly put a lot time into making sure they are great because there friends might see it and they want it to be perfect for them. If they have the motivation to make something so inventive and spend their free time doing this, then whose to say with the right guidance they couldn't create an amazing project using Web 2.0 tools.

I remember when I first got onto myspace and created my page I wanted it to be perfect. I spent days finding the perfect background and the perfect song, and they wrote up my profile and wanted to make it grammatically correct and interesting, since I knew so many people would be reading. I do however feel that sometimes when students use these and do these projects they do not necessarily care if it is grammatically correct, so as a teacher one would have to have guidelines to these projects to make sure that students were doing it "correctly." But I do think giving them some leeway into how they present the information is a good way. Some kids don't think in essays, they think visually. It is the same concept as giving students different ways to do projects in your classroom, now it is just on a computer instead of in your physical room.

I can actually think of many ways to use this in science. This year students in a science class communicated with and did a lab with students in Germany. Doing more of this would open students eyes to other cultures as well as ways of doing science. We also do IRP (Independent Research Projects) I could allow my students to present these in a variety of ways. Instead of putting it on a flat poster board they could record themselves actually doing the project and upload it like on youtube, but using something more sophisticated where they could actually type a write up about it also. So it would incorporate how they learn as well as the write up that teachers want. They have many virtual dissection tools these days too. To be honest we are using one this coming week and I had to do the whole tutorial and go through it myself before I could have my kids do it.

I do think that all these concepts are great and that we really do need to reach out to the next generation using their tools and their ways, but as educators we are already very overwhelmed with all the duties we have, so I think many teachers will shy away due to the work they will have to put in to make these things work in their classrooms. We need to find a compromise as teachers. We need to allow students some autonomy, but as she said in the article give teachers lots of support along the way.