למידה, אינטרנט … ומה שביניהם

Learn the names of all the rivers in South America. That was the assignment given to Deborah Stipek's daughter Meredith in school, and her mom, who's dean of the Stanford University School of Education, was not impressed. "That's silly," Stipek told her daughter. "Tell your teacher that if you need to know anything besides the Amazon, you can look it up on Google."

If you want to know what’s going on in a field, the static and credentialed sources generally aren’t where you want to go. The credentialed sources are great for certain types of information—the solid and stolid facts, the commoditized information, the boring truth – but the real intellectual action is usually occurring in the blogs, newsletters, and forums. Confining students to the credentialed sites is likely to kill their interest and enthusiasm.

However, if I were going to think about what I teach in my courses, much of the valuable information I rely on comes from blogs, and not only from academic blogs. If I want to know what teachers in new media were doing a year. ago, I guess I could read a journal. If I want to know what people are doing now, what new developments are emerging, what is working and what isn't, I would look at blogs. Wouldn't you?

Sharing the idea of the campaign with students is an ultimate information fluency activity. Our students should know how the world’s favorite search tool operates and how all types of people “work” it.

While this particular response to neoNazi activity appears democratic, and noble, something about it leaves me cold and frightened. I can easily see Google bombing used in damaging ways. What happens when our writings, our ideas, our professions, our friends are on the other side of the bomb? How does that lesson play out? What should we teach about ethics and citizenship and reason?

… I sought out the Charlotte’s Web entry. As soon as I saw the lousy plot summary I knew I had a very cool lesson to do.

And so yesterday I asked my class what they knew about wikipedia. One child immediately told us his mother had recently used it to find an article for a conference talk she was giving. She’s a physician so presumably she found what she wanted – an example of wikipedia working. However, another child admitted that it hadn’t helped him the year before when researching the Middle Ages

Your class wrote great cover copy. Any paperback publisher in New York would be pleased with that text on the back of a book.

Unfortunately, an encyclopedia entry is a different literary genre.

With every new piece of technology, to make this technology work, you have to change your teaching practices. Part of it is (thinking about) how to go from sage on the stage to being a real mentor.

The evolution of the Internet can facilitate this approach. Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis and blogs, make information sharing and content creation easier.

Large numbers of Internet users hold such strong views about their online communities that they compare the value of their online world to their real-world communities.

Lately I have been off blog much more than on, posting a few times a month, not a week, while reading with pleasure and a bit of wonderment about the whirlwind travels and explorations of Bryan, Stephen, Nancy and many others on my Bloglines feeds. At times I've thought perhaps I should blog more often–I certainly have many entries swirling about in my head, and I've got to post some recent talks–but quick posts just don't do it for me as a thinker, as a writer.

It takes time for the many loose strands of thought to converge into a unified post; it takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy, and a lot (I know, I know sometimes too much) writing. And some posts never quite find their footing; they remain awkward and tangled when I don't have enough time or courage or energy or ability to go deep.

מאז הולדת ווב 2.0 מדברים (שוב) על יצירת תכנים בידי הגולשים.

אצלנו אף חזרו למודלים מוקדמים של יצירת תוכן בידי מומחים וצריכתם בידי המורים, בלא יכולת של המורים להוסיף תכנים משל עצמם.

has been working with his 4th and 5th grade students learning Google Sketch-Up. They are currently creating houses, learning how to wrap textures, place objects and manipulate the environment within in Sketch-Up. This is leading up to a planned community building activity, both figuratively and literally. … Tony has been searching Google Earth looking for housing developments that are partially completed.

For example he recently found a location in Google Earth that had streets and cul-de-sacs laid, but construction had not yet started. He used the path tools within Google Earth to create lots. After the students become a bit more familiar with Sketch-Up, Tony will assign them specific lots in the housing development with the idea that each student will build a home on a lot. Part of the process will involve discussion of zoning and building codes. The students will decide on rules and regulations for their community. I’m looking forward to watching the process develop.

Are we deforming information by google bombing? If so are both the website and the google bombing both acts of disinformation? Do we acknowledge by doing this that the marketplace of ideas is now secondary to page rank as a democratic value?