Week 1 - Blog Posting #2 - Learning 2.0

I absolutely loved this video on A Vision of k-12 Students Today. It was simple, but to the point, and highlighted what many teachers and schools are missing in student learning. The concept of Learning 2.0 which incorporates new Web 2.0 technologies into traditional learning in order to create higher learning and achieving for our students.

As teachers, it is our duty to prepare our students for the future and right now the future is shifting to a new paradigm of giving our students 21st century skills, skills to make them successful in our ever changing world around us. In our textbook, it clearly states on page 26 that, "today's students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach," and they, "think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors." As a young teacher, many might think I have an advantage in all of this, but believe me I don't. School has changed DRAMATICALLY just in the last 6 years of me graduating from high school. We didn't iPods and text messaging and we wouldn't dare bring our gigantic cell phones our during the school day. We didn't have MySpace or Facebook only the traditional AIM chat platform. Students today have a million different things coming at them at the same time without anywhere to put that energy into their education. This is why we, as teachers, must change our way of thinking and learning in order to give our students the best education possible for THEM, not US. Check out this video called "Shift Happens" it is quite scary to think about, but what's even scarier is that it is almost 4 years old and they are in the works to create an updated version with even scarier statistics!

Research shows that students use technology not only to communicate, but to learn and they know that they need to prepare themselves for the new job market. They think differently, but they aren't dumb. If you go into any classroom and ask the students how they like to learn, you are going to surprised if you think its just letting them watch a movie or do a poster project, students want to create, REALLY create, and use new tools they may not be familiar with (or in some case technology they are MORE familiar with than their teachers). We, as teachers, have always been told to make the content relevant to our students, but we also have to make the WAY we PROJECT the content to be relevant to them!

Sources:

Fisch, K. & McLeod, S. (2003). Shift Happens. Retrieved on September 8, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jWujAmLjS4

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007) Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools. (pp. 26-27). Eugene, Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education.