Friday, May 11, 2012

A Brave New World

I have recently viewed a Youtube clip featuring a lecture presentation from Mike Wesch during TEDxNYED. http://youtu.be/DwyCAtyNYHw

The topic of the presentation is new social media and its possible positive and or negative impact. The major comparison was the socially driven Internet and introducing literacy to a tribe in south east Asia. With the tribe, something such as literacy was able to affect negatively a vast majority of the culture. Long story short, the possible negative application of the new media (web 2.0) can end up producing a entirely new way to police and stifle human expression but the new media can also open up a whole new world of possibilities.

From his perspective as an educator, he showed a college classroom with stadium seating and four walls. His first reflection was on the walls themselves and what they have come to signify. With the walls of the classroom the most common questions that the students have are:

How many points is this worth?
Will this be on the test?
i.e. What is the minimum that i have to do to succeed, what are my limitations?

To correct this issue, Mr. Wesch assigns everyone in an anthropology class a position on the map and requires them to be an expert of that area. After research continues all students compile their results on a class Wiki site. In essence, the class gained more knowledge than the professor. I believe that this model is the truest example of "Guide on the side" and "Total student engagement".

This aspect of education will require a total overhaul of everything that i have come to expect from the educational system but will allow for education to remain flexible, or maybe finally become flexible, with technology.

In a time of standardized tests, this is a step in the opposite direction. But i believe that this sort of creative thinking will be required to fix the ailments of our educational system.

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