Weekly Reflective Blog Week 2

The articles and videos provided to us this week were informational and had me pondering about my future as an educator. I learned about the differences between Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 for educators.

Unlike Web 1.0 in which limited interaction was implemented, Web 2.0 welcomes us to change information with anyone and everyone. For example, in Web 2.0, we publish data and information to the Internet via web identities, such as Facebook, Wikipedia, and a multitude of blogging sites. Not to mention, the notable change in the way online interactivity is performed, not so much technologically, but in how we interact and share information with others using various forms of online connections.

Web 2.0 prompts users to share information using three forms of connectivity: people to people, online services, and users and software applications. Web 2.0 has conveniently made shopping, banking, and personal finance much more accessible to mange.

Web 3.0 in education includes everything Web 2.0 offers but much more. K-20 schools are readjusting to a changing world, and technology is now affecting education in the form of MOOCs and computer programs that allow learning to be personalized for students in ways not possible with a single teacher in a fully diverse classroom. The notion that teachers may not be needed because of technology intimidates me. I appreciate the approach of competency-based learning, but the thought of implementing it on a daily basis is a concern to me. Although it is nice to have technology or a specific type of software produce a student's progression through the curriculum at their own pace, depth, etc. In addition to having students prove their mastery and progressing to the next level, I nevertheless believe teachers must incorporate skills we have learned throughout our milestone journey in our schooling. Which brings me to the other article about Instructional Innovation that states to promote instructional innovation and student engagement in active learning through innovative uses of

technology. I agree with Saga Briggs as she notes the ten most powerful uses of technology for learning which include critical thinking, mobile learning, access to education, deeper learning, continuous feedback, unlimited and immediate learning, creation and contribution, social connections global awareness, and understanding learning. However, I disagree with one. Briggs' explanation for unlimited and immediate learning as 'imagining two people writing a research paper, one of whom gets his facts quickly online and the other of whom gets his facts slowly, at a library. The person who gets the information he needs more quickly will be able to move on with his writing more quickly, thereby conserving brainpower. The person who flips through several books in order to find the information he's looking for will be slightly more exhausted by the time he thinks about incorporating that fact into the argument he's making." Briggs's statement may be accurate, but my critique of this notion is that not everything we gather on the Internet is true or fact. The learner will have to search for a while to analyze his research and examine the credentials for the source he is looking at. Which is also time-consuming as it is gathering information from a reliable book from the library.

On the other hand, one of the ten most powerful uses of technology for learning, as mentioned by Briggs that I agree with, is critical thinking. I enjoy presenting my students to thinking about thinking, or in other words, critical think. As stated in the article In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co­authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Instead, students learn from thinking–thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use–just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning.

Taking the notion into account, I need to learn more about how I can advocate my conclusion to other educators. I need to learn more about this topic because I strongly believe educators may one day be replaced by technology.

References

Delaney, M. (2012, October 26). What Is Web 3.0, Really, and What Does It Mean for Education? EDTech Focus on K-12.

The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher

When kids can get their lessons from the Internet, what's left for classroom instructors to do?

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-deconstruction-of-the-k-12-teacher/388631/