Nancy Blair's List: Perspectives and Opinions

Question: Will Web 2.0 be an integral part of K-12 education? If we assume that the best predictor of the future is the past, then the answer is "no." Web 2.0 is new, but the structure and assumptions underlying its use and benefits, as outlined by Steve Hargadon in this forum, are not new. At the heart of Hargadon's vision - and Michael Wesch's - is the collaborative student project, and this idea has been prominent in American education since 1919 ...

I have to start this by saying that I am an unabashed disciple of Michael Wesch, who's participating in this forum, and the methods he demonstrates so vividly in his videos. I didn't start out looking for any guru but encountered Wesch's videos while I was struggling myself, as a novice educator, with the institutionalized boredom of my students and their constant absorption in their laptops during class. Before I got to Wesch's notion of a crisis of significance, I had probed my students about exactly what was going on with them, and it was clear that they had been bored for years.

The new classroom is about information, but not just information. It's also about collaboration, about changing roles of student and teacher, and about challenges to the very idea of traditional authority. It may also be about a new cognitive model for learning that relies heavily on what has come to be called "multitasking." Many educators voice ambivalence about the power of educational technologies to distract students and fragment their attention.

Very thought-provoking article that compares the introduction of the slate into classroom practice to the integration of technology in today's classrooms.

Good reminders.

Interesting perspective; the comments are very interesting.

Answers questions/responds to beliefs about copyright laws.

Article discusses the "flow" of information with networked media of Web 2.0. Includes info on move from broadcast to network and identifies four core issues: 1) democratization; 2) stimulation; 3) homophily; and 4) power.