Today's society is constantly evolving. According to Moore's Law, every 18 to 24 months our newest technology will be improved upon, essentially doubling what preceded it. While Moore's Law provides us with the "How?" what we really want to know is the "Why?". Essentially, man kind is constantly aiming to ameliorate our past designs and ultimately make our lives easier. With these new advancements in technology come certain things that must be put into perspective. One crucial thing however, is how an education system should be run with this new technology.
A very wise man once said, "With great power, comes great responsibility". The same idea works with the internet and how we use it in our education systems. There are many new technological devices that can be utilized to their greatest extent in an education system. Devices such as laptops, Smart-Boards, projectors and internet access are just a few things that are essential to create a modern and sophisticated learning environment. Some might say this is a radical and non-traditional idea. However, according to Nicholas Negroponte, it is the exact opposite. Negroponte founded a foundation, called the One Laptop Per Child Program, in which small laptop computers that are virtually indestructible are sent to children in Africa in order to allow them to explore all the knowledge on the internet. This demonstrates the key importance of the internet as a tool for education, making it essential for every student to have a laptop with an internet connection. Thereby, allowing students to learn how to use this new technology but to also contribute to the online community.
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once said that the reason he founded Wikipedia was in order to provide an immersive and boundless online encyclopedia to everyone. What Wales has set up is a perfect example of the community one can create using the internet. Thereby creating a perfect atmosphere for learning where everyone can share what they have found or researched online with their classmates. Secondly, it allows for instant sharing of information which is extremely useful in a classroom if it is put to use correctly. For example, if a teacher finds an article that is pertinent to what the class is learning the teacher can distribute this article to his or her students quickly and efficiently. The teacher can also use websites such as Youtube and education.com in order to demonstrate certain ideas to their students using visual aids such as images and videos.
In conclusion, in a Web 2.0 world there are two main things needed in a classroom, a computer with an internet connection and a projector. Through this, learning can become an interactive and interesting experience. The power that the internet gives us to educate is simply incalculable. Sites such as Wikipedia and Google are terrific tools that allow us to find new and useful information. As we can all see, major changes continue to occur and will keep on occurring in the world of education. The real question is, “Are you ready for change?”, because I am.
Good work, Mason. Your text was very well written and interesting, and your points were strong and to the point, so you got your opinion/point across very well. I agreed with everything you did and wrote and its hard for me to find anything wrong with your post, but the only thing i might add is that you could have linked afew more sites like Youtube or the One Laptop per Child Association for people who would want to look more into that stuff, but really thats all i could say because all in all this was a very good post. Great job man.
ReplyDeleteWell done Mason. I agree with everything you have mentioned. I especially enjoyed the part where you mentioned Moore's Law, great term to incorporate into your text. Although, I think you should have spoken more about how teachers should make these changes from what we have today. Otherwise, your text was intriguing and was definitely worth taking a look at.
ReplyDeleteGreat Blog post Mason! I agree with your thoughts on the future of education but classes dont all necesseraliy need computers to be a web 2.0 classroom. They could have mobile devices like iphones or ipads which are somewhat more practical then bringing a laptop to each class. Great post though.
ReplyDeleteyes wikipedia is great sometimes i use it several times per day. but err?.. althou it's a very decent site, wikipedia only provides knowledge. it's like it teaches you about programming - but with programming you can do either a virus or something legitimate. in order to make that decision right, you need wisdom - which nobody teaches you since freedom seems to be everybody's highest value. and since it's a materialistic world, this freedom can make it all go to sh!t very easy.
ReplyDeletei also heard about "moore's law" since i'm an informatics student, in fact he was talking about the number of transistors in a circuit which multiply or something, anyway it's really unimportant.
and the fact that err?.. o.O they donated laptops to every child in africa?.. wow.. it means AIDS grew back exponentially there since every woman would fack even the most miserable sickling just to get pregnant and have as many children as possible in order to collect those laptops.. i bet a demented re7arded woman started this "project".. generally men are more reasonable than women. women?.. most of them are living better than men so they're not even capable to understand what a problem is or how to solve it. all they know is makeup, sucking and facking. some of them don't even know THAT much !!! i don't have a laptop and so far i don't even need one - but why would those dirty a$$ n!ggers need a laptop more than me? all they'll understand from internet is that the world is much bigger than their village and life can be real paradise if you're willing to pay the price - which is your soul. i don't really know about soul but i said clearly in another post that people who are corrupted succeed easily in life. so those laptops don't do anything else for africans than to add temptation in their lifes. and since they got no education of course they'll do all they can (good or bad) in order to live good like the rest of the world.