There is a question that continues to haunt me as I continue my evangelizing for a mix-it yourself media world. Hands-down, one of the most impressive aspects of Web 2.0 is the aggregator concept, and our ability to mix and remix content into personal digital newspapers. The question remains, though, “Aren’t we going to exclusively attract news and content that agrees with our world view and ignore the contrary arguments and evidence?”
I believe that this is a huge problem, as my country seems to be increasingly polarized into the conservative/rural view and the liberal/urban view of the national dream. A glimmer of hope occurred to me, a few minutes ago, as I was reading an article in the Bay City Times about Michigan’s Freedom to Learn laptop program — recommended to my by TechLearning News (English).
The article described a laptop assignment where students used their word processors to write a two-page letter on drug-abuse and other software to produce slides for a class presentation.
They were instructed to visit a variety of anti-drug Web sites to get help for their letter and presentation.
The fundamental difference between this and a traditional version of the assignment, has less to do with the presence of technology, and more to do with the conspicuous absence of a textbook. Rather than getting their content exclusively from a packaged information product, designed to make learning slick and easy, students are asked to visit a variety of information sources, that, hopefully, do not agree on every aspect of the topic. It puts more responsibility of learning, on the shoulders of the learner, to make some decisions, recognize that there is more than one side, more than one answer, and more than one perspective.
In textbook learning, we are taught one way to interpret the poem, one way to solve the algebra problem, one way to punctuate a paragraph, and one way to think. Perhaps that’s the way that some people like it. I think that the best learning for our future will happen when students are learning in authentic ways, from authentic information sources, and empowered to do something with what they are learning, to impose their learning on other people, to become individuals with value.
2¢ Worth!
English, Eric. “Wired to Learn Laptop computers at area schools are educating kids at the speed of the Internet.” The Bay City Times 24 Apr 2006 3 May 2006 <http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1145891732251560.xml&coll=4>.
Shapeshift, “Stillness.” Shapeshift’s Flickr Photostream. 12 Jan 2006. 3 May 2006 <http://flickr.com/photos/shapeshift/85220007/>.
Hi David —
Sorry I missed you at Sea World — it sounded great!!!
Your comments today made me think of a school that I think is proving what you are saying about the use of technology and how it needs to be available at all times —
Please check out this site — http://www.berkeleyprep.org/tech/AAL/index.htm
One of my participants in projects teaches there.
Enjoy your day!
Jennifer
Let me get this straight: your example of an assignment examining different points of view is one that explicitly limits the research to one side of the issue? That is, the students are told to research a variety ANTI-drug sites. Sorry, this is critical thinking for Soviets.
I agree with hoffman. Getting a ‘variety’ of points of view would entail reading some pro-drug sites (start with NORML, say, or in Canada, the Marijuana Party).
Critics who say the web will polarize people’s views are often also those who cannot contemplate a genuine diversity of opinion. But it’s easier to challenge a web culture than the prevailing one that exists in our schools.
While I don’t take issue with anything you say, and you have cited a positive example, I have seen the way my sons “research” assignments on the Internet. They google the topic and simply print out enormous wadges of stuff that they then proudly take with them to school, not having read a word of it. That’s tantamount to taking several library books in to class without actually even opening any of them. It’s also a total waste of paper.
I recognise that this is not a failure of the resource, but a failure of its application. I have tried to stick my oar in and get my kids to see how pointless an exercise it is if they learn/gain nothing from it, but they insist that this is all that is required. If teachers are going to encourage internet research (and I hope an increasing number do exactly that), they are going to have to put in the extra effort to set the task in such a way that the kids actually learn something from the process.
For Hoffman & Downes, “point taken!”
For Karynr, you make an excellent point about the pointlessness that characterizes so much of the work we assign our students. We are surrounded by information. It is in the air that we breath. But information has very little value unless it results in helping us to answer a question, solve a problem, or accomplish a goal. It must be transformed into knowledge, wisdom, and constructive action to be of value.
This is the reason that I urge people to consider the skills of finding, evaluating, organizing, processing, and compellingly communicating the information as “Basic Skills”, as part of our definition of literacy, as a skill no less critical then the ability to decode text on a piece of paper.
Thanks for your comments, everyone!
Thanks for sharing