Thing #5

One of the articles I read was the Web 2.0 is Not About Version Numbers or Betas. I have to say I understand where Richard MacManus is coming from. Web 2.0 is not a new version of the web but a name given to show all the new advances of the web. The web has become a place for great knowledge for all people. Even if you are a book loving rocket scientist, if you are surfing the web you will stumble upon some new morsel of information you did not know, only because of Web 2.0. The average person is able to upload, download, email, blog, twitter, facebook, chat, shop, research, and even receive a college degree because of the new exciting information found on Web 2.0. 

The second article I read was Web 2.0: A Guide for Educators by Susan McLester and boy did I learn new things. I like most people was aware, (0r so I thought)  how much the web influenced our everyday living . Blogs, social networks, emails, businesses, video conferences, and YouTube, these are just a few of the sites that are used on a daily bases for varies different tasks by individuals. Now schools are using these same features plus a few more to enhance teaching. I have to say that is wonderful. 

I have three children of my own and boy can they run circles around me when it comes to technology. Just the other day my youngest, she is 6,  told me how to bring up videos and games that they play on the computers at school. I remember at six years old learning how to write my name on the straight line and here 22 years later my daughter is learning how to use a computer. 

My middle daughter, whom is in the third-grade, had to do her first research project this past weekend. The note her teacher sent home informed the parents that the students were to research Space Shuttles and then build their own. Now that sounds normal enough right? Here's where things have changed, when I was in school we did all our research at the library with big thick books. Oh no, not now! Now the teachers expect the students to use the internet and conduct research on past shuttle. My daughters teacher explains that if they, the child, are not able to work on it at home that is fine, she will designate time for those individuals to work on the class computer. 

These are just a few ways that the schools are making an attempt to work with the changes society/the web have evolved. Technology is there we must find a way to embrace it. A way to use it to our advantage. Children, students are going to use these tools whether we like it or not so we should show them the proper ways to use them. We must find new ways to keep students involved with classwork and this, the WEB, is the way to do that.