Most importantly, I want to emphasize as much as I can, that we need to not promote Web 2.0 as the future of education or learning. In fact, it is highly likely Web 2.0 will not even exist when today’s junior high students enter college or the work force. There are many many web-based tools that can greatly enhance learning today, but need to be used with consideration of how that application affects learning. When I see people state learners need to use these tools because they will experience them in the work place, I just cringe.
They may use them in the work place, or they may not. If they do, employers typically want to train them on their own systems. An employer is much more interested in an employee able to communicate proficiently, locate and critically evaluate information, and build strong internal and external customer relationships. Employers and universities don’t care if a student knows how to use a wiki or make a youtube video. General literacy is much more important than knowledge of specific web platforms. Some of the skills we promote as 21st century literacies will not exist five years from now. There are some excellent frameworks for promoting literacy and I’m excited to see them promoted more fully.
Tony Richards on 04 Feb 10"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo
