beyondwebct

Education is sharing. Education is about being open.

The Internet now makes it possible for digital expressions of knowledge to have the same magical, nonrivalrous quality as knowledge itself.

Information technology is sometimes turned against itself and is made to conceal, restrict, withhold, and delete. For example, a course management system like Blackboard theoretically has the potential to greatly improve educators' capacity to share. Instead, many CMSs take the approach of hiding educational materials behind passwords and regularly deleting all student-contributed course content at the end of the term. If Facebook worked like Blackboard, every fifteen weeks it would delete all your friends, delete all your photographs, and unsubscribe you from all your groups. The conceal-restrict-withhold-delete strategy is not a way to build a thriving community of learning.

The idea that students are digital natives is a myth

they need to be taught to see the web as a learning tool

helping student and teachers make sense out of an ever-growing, ever-diversifying web.