Social bookmarking

I think the value in social bookmarking is being able to share a bunch of links in an easy format especially for teachers. If you are trying to explain why thunder and lightning happens you can provide the students with a series of links of different explanations. For a student I think it can show how much research they have done on a project. It could basically works as a works cited page for any sort of project a student has been working on. I think this kind of tool would be great for middle school age students, you could give them a series of links on a topic and they could write a report from it. In that case you wouldn't have to worry about everyone using different sources and could sort of regulate what was being used. I think social bookmarking could be used for any type of situation where you wanted to present people with an array of website on a certain topic.

After reading the trends and issues is what amazing to see how the definition for technology kept evolving. It seems like that practice should only continue as our civilization becomes more advanced. As far as my career goes I would like to be on the cutting edge of technology in the athletic field. I believe that in order to do that you must having a growing knowledge of technology and how it can implemented in everything you do on a daily basis.

Delicious website

My delicious website is http://delicious.com/matt98912

Use of Wiki

I thought that the Wiki is a great tool for certain projects. I think that for collaboration purposes its great because people don't have to be in the same physical location to work on a project. It's very easy to use. The only part I didn't like is that to the outside viewer its not viewable to see how much work each person has done. To the best of the outsiders knowledge one person could have written the entire thing and nobody would know. I think that as a teacher it would be a great tool for students working on a research paper to show their progress and to show how they reached their conclusion. Since Wiki is very interactive its easy to receive feedback from others and immediately act upon that feedback.

Technology in Education

After reading Postman’s commentary I can’t believe how short sighted and myopic he is. His fear of technology leaves the reader feeling like Postman is holding a grudge. It almost seems as if Postman never really caught up with technology and after he realized the train had passed him by refused to try to get back on. Postman seems like a very cynical person who believes that the internet is just a “fad.” Postman’s commentary on comparing children using computers to children using factory equipment in pre modern Britain makes no sense, as I have yet to see a child with an amputated arm from a keyboard. The Luddites as he mentioned in his commentary saved their children from the factories but in doing so were outcast from their society.

The one major part of his commentary that I could not agree more with though and that is school is not just a place for academic education. Social education is a big part of the learning process that would be missed out on if schools as we know them did not exist. Learning is not all about mathematics and biology it is about interacting with other people your age and learning to work as a team. If you were to take those things away from a young persons education you are just creating a robot like civilization where people would not interact with each other except for the use of a computer. Postman hit the nail on the head by quoting Robert Fulghum's All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, the older I get the more I realize that situations I deal with in my life are not made easier by my education but my ability to be able to communicate and work with others.

In Reigeluth & Joseph they discuss how education would work in a perfect world with a perfect educational system. However the system is only as good as the people who run it and education is only as good as the people that are teaching it. Maybe after decades upon decades of technology based learning someday the education system Reigeluth & Joseph could come to fruition but until then there is no clear cut way education can be so personalized with such individual attention. While technology can greatly increase the learners capabilities it is not to the point where it can be used as an independent educational platform. The internet has been around in most high schools for almost 15 years by now and it is amazing to see how many teachers still have very little use of it in their classwork. Granted a lot of teachers have used it to supplement the framework of their classes but the majority of them are still uneasy as how it can be used in relation to their classes.

If we could start the education system from scratch Reigeluth & Joseph’s methods would be the best way to start. However trying to move from the current education system there will never happen, not unless education becomes more valued and supported.

Matt