July 27, 2010
Deschooling Society Chapter Seven: Learning Webs
Today’s reading for class was Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society Chapter seven: Learning Webs (1971).
Here Illich states that “a good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.” (Paragraph 16)
I think that Illich thinks that Web 2.0 is going to replace traditional education, because in his standard, traditional education has failed to offer its students theses three things.
We also watched a video on YouTube that uses Illich’s own words.
Illich thinks that the hidden agenda of the bureaucrats are implemented into schools and makes institutionalized robots out of all of us. I don’t like this idea, but I do see his points. As an educator I like to think that I’m focused on learning; that I’m teaching students how to think critically using the tool of physics. But as I start my first year teaching I’m starting to forget this idea as the pressure of the TAKS sets in before school even starts. Overall I don’t think that the doomsday approach is too much and that there are good reasons for our traditional educational set up.
Technology
We discussed different ways to hold meetings through the Internet today. We looked at Skype, tokbox, dimdim and even Second Life. The first three applications are ways to video chat and share documents with many people at one time. The third.. I can only explain it as a mixture of the Sims and World of Warcraft. At first I was doubtful that there was any reason to hold meetings on Second Life and I was even bored that we spent so much time talking about it. But after I heard a classmate’s comment about how that would help students that have severe social disorders or fears, I reconsidered. I still think it’s weird to use Second Life as a place to hold meetings, but now I know that there are exceptions to that rule.
The Sims
Plus
World of Warcraft
Equals
Second LIfe
Here is an activity that involves Skype. Talk to a Researcher
Today we covered Video and Communication Technology in the Technology Cognate Framework. Working with Skype as a communication technology “provides connectivity and shared meaning.” (pg 5) and Skype also is a video technology because it involves sharing your “presence and affect” (pg 6). I think it is more productive to have a face-to-face meeting versus multiple emails because there’s no response time. Every response is immediate.
