A year or two ago (and before this class) I would have answered with an emphatic NO!!!
Now, I have been swayed by many factors.
1. Accessibility
- In our school or 360 students, there are only 75 (approx.) computers. This of course means that not all students would have internet access everyday. If they did, it would invlove a massive shift in scheduling the labs, the students, the courses, and the teachers. How this would look is a good question. A good solution would get you a promotion, a bad one makes everyone hate you. Schools with laptop carts, 1 on 1 computers, and lots of labs will be breaking the ground.
- Slow limited access might be the best way to go. Phase in access for students, and teachers will slowly realize the benefit for learning.
- What would happen if availability of the interent and access to Web 2.0 tools were just dumped onto students without training? Disaster and abuse of course. We need to educate the teachers first through quality professional development before realeasing the students.
2. The Students
- As I watch the students, I see their ability to communicate expanding exponentially. Mobile devices, Facebook, iPods and iPads, smartphones, and the internet allow students to communicate in a variety of manners with a variety of media. Maybe someday the massive amount of written communication will evolve into higher written test scores, expression, writing, etc.
3. Web 2.0
- The ability to post, edit, contribute, and critique online content has become invaluable for learning. Many of the resources we have seen in this class has proven the value of Web 2.0 tools for learning.
As we are now, we are unsure of what is the right path to take. We should look to the students and see what they are already doing. We need to use them as a resource for what is relevant and valuable. If we do that, we will know what should be done.
Release Web 2.0, or the learning will suffer!
No comments:
Post a Comment