Jun 04 2008
Thing # 2: Web 2.0 and the Elementary Student
Gone are the days when students will be satisfied with learning from lectures and worksheets. The current elementary population has grown up with fast paced computers, action TV, and “instant” everything. Their world is not the world of twenty or even ten years ago. Today’s students are used to participation, variety of media, and control.
To reach these students, we must use the methods they are used to. F.D.R.’s “Fireside Chats” would not be an effective way to communicate to the public today. So lecturing and having students memorizing facts would not be effective ways to teach today’s students. Message and medium, facts and form, process and product are all part of today’s interactive learning. Web 2.0 reaches the students where they are. The methods are those they are used to, and all the different forms of media that can be used on Web 2.0 help prepare the student for the type of learning and work the students will meet in their work a day world.
Web 2.0 features variety of visual and audio presentations that can be manipulated by the student. Use of 2.0 encourages the communication and cooperation that is needed in our world now, and will be even more important in the future. Web 2.0 interaction generates creativity and original thinking. These are much more important than being able to fill out a work sheet.
Our world has changed, and education must change if we are to prepare students to live in this changed world.
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