Week 2 Reflection

As you guys can see I have added a concept map at the bottom of the blog. This concept map is about the way I view education online or merging education and technology. It should be painless and easy after all why use technology if it is going to complicate things, which is the opposite of the concept, right? I feel the use of eTexbooks, blended classed (lecture+ online assignments) and online classes make learning easier and are designed to be at the learners pace, they are more student centered than teacher centered.

While I was trying to figure out how to add this concept map I ran into many blogs and discussions, many videos and websites. All I needed to know was how to embed this video at a bigger resolution at the bottom of the page. What I found was a lot of opinions and believes about things that were unrelated to my topic. It brings me to my next question, what skills should we teach our children in schools about finding information online? Unlike a few years ago, when teachers assigned a research project on topic, let’s say the structure of the American Government, students were to go to the school library read a few books and write a paper. That was perfect the children read educational books found in their school library that had been approved by the school board. In recent years, children do not go to their school library to find a book they turn to the internet for answers. This new looking for answers on website and wiki can turn into a disaster. Yes, the internet has many great things to offer many ideas, opinions, and answers but we need to teach children in school how to differentiate between useless information and opinions and the real information.  Like the example I gave last week about the boy who found a site about the holocaust being a myth, there are many young minds (and old) that can be confused by the information they find online. Even I question the information I find online, the best way I have found is to validate the information with the school’s website a peer reviewed journal or the information found through the libraries page.

A new type of learning community that is growing is through social bookmarks. It is a wonderful idea, imagine you walk to a coffee shop where everyone has the same interest and topic as you for example everyone can like growing roses, fixing muscle cars or train a golden retriever. So people show you there favorite links articles and photos the only problem is this is so informal someone can be way off topic or while you were trying to do research on  a specific car someone can give you information about a truck. These websites are done by amateurs leaving the information found at times unreliable. Instead of going to the experts to learn how to prune the perfect rose you have a person read a website and recommends you view it.

This social bookmark cites can be a great tool to learn new information and share thoughts. There is no doubt this is a new on the rise way to locate information, people are no longer limited to ask questions to those they come indirect contact to. I have read the site del.icio.us to be easy to find information on but I have not joined, yet.