Wesch - Thinking Differently, Doing Differently

Web 2.0 and Social Media-- Blog

Video 1

MEANING:

Text used to be linear, static and passive. Today digital text is multi-dimensional, dynamic, and active. Using digital text, learners can independently construct their own understanding of the world by linking to a variety of competing opinions.  Learners are more freely able to randomly access instruction. Learners can go back and forth selecting parts of the instruction that is relevant or needed and skip parts of the instruction already mastered.  Instruction is individualized. The individual has the freedom to choose what he needed to know to achieve his goal. Learners are no longer prisoners of instructors’ biases who consciously or subconsciously select text books that are in alliance with their own political and socioeconomic viewpoint.  Digital text, especially hypertext, affords learners a method to seek clarification of complex ideas by linking to several different sites where the ideas might be expressed better. In essence, learners are now in control of their own learning experience.

OPINION:

Digital text can link video, audio and graphic files that expand the depth of understanding but more important, digital text has the potential to link minds to minds. Ideas proffered have the potential of standing on their own merits without being prejudged due to the race, sex, sexual orientation, etch of the originators. Digital text might do in a few years what thousands of years of social evolution has failed to do-link humanity to humanity. A six grade kid in the southward of Newark might discover that he is not unlike a six grader in Beijing, China or Russia, for education can no longer be confined within the walls of a loud underfunded classroom nor does it ends with the ringing of a school bell. While there will always be a need for classrooms, gone are days when what comes out of instructors’ mouths is the gossip according to the local board of education. Instructors can no longer assume what they say will not be instantly goggled and challenged by learners. In the past, instructors were education commanders who took control and guided learners to the official version of the truth. In the future, instructors will serve as facilitators who set the stage and unleash learners to discover their own truths.

Video 2

Meaning

While we have the technology, it is not being used to its fullest potential. There is no need for students to be sitting in that classroom at a specific date and time scheduled months in advance by school administrators. With the current technology, students could optimize instruction by individually selecting a date and time in which they are in the right frame of mind to receive instruction. Instruction no longer has to be spoon fed to students in a series of sessions that does not allow them to pause and rewind at their whim. Instead of sitting in uncomfortable chairs in crowded classrooms, Students now have the option to lie in bed or chose any spot of their likings and receive instruction on their laptops or even cellular phone.

Opinion:

Virtual classrooms are also cheaper to maintain than traditional ones. Research has shown Virtual classrooms to be just as effective. Web 2.0 offers a mean that allow  talented instructors to reach a wider group of learners than possible in traditional classrooms. The interactivity and the flexibility of web 2.0 and future technology will eventually move the bulk of instruction out of classrooms and into homes and offices where learners will be readily access the information at optimal times. Children in low socioeconomic school districts will no longer be held captive in low performing neighborhood schools. Web 2.0 and future technology will make it possible for quality teachers to be in every classroom as well as in every living room. Technology is the hope for the future.   

link to COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY THEORY