About the web

I am such a novice at the web stuff. Things like creating the web page really overwhelm me. Yes, I've wiki'd for other classes and even created a cybrary that's used by one of my schools. But there's something about the retention time of this knowledge that is different from memorizing chemistry, physics, and trig formulas. Is it because what we learn today, we have to update and relearn tomorrow? It seems that our knowledge of certain web skills become obsolete quickly and in order to be fully information literate we must be constantly active on the web. I can still recite Pythagoreum theorum and probably pull a few other things out of the cobwebs to help my kids with basic high school classes, but this computer stuff, whoa! I do want to be a goto teacher as I am a librarian, and the world of library is becoming more and more tech oriented.
I'm the only one in my family who doesn't Facebook, and maybe now I will get around to finding some old friends when I create a Facebook page. Wish me luck, because I need all that I can get.

Melissa

Thoughts on Ted

When I speak to my high school sons about what I had to work with when I was in college, they have no clue. Sometimes we'll see an older movie and I'll shout out, "those are key punch cards!" They really can't believe we went through that kind of agony to get a small program to run. They have grown up on the computer and on the web. When my 16-year old was in first grade, his teacher found age-appropriate web sites for research on bears. She formed groups of three and had them create "reports" together. About one sentence or so per kid, with a best effort illustration and then the group presented to the class. My first grader was on the web, doing research. Of all the animals I knew about being an animal science major, he got one I didn't know, the Sun Bear of Asia. Today this child can go anywhere and do almost anything without fear on the web. He is the one who is truly ready for the next 5000 days of the web as he has grown and changed and adapted as it has during its first 5000 days.
I appreciated the comparisons to the human brain as it stands after the first 5000 days, but I'm not sure I agree that it will grow to the proportions that he estimates (in HB) within the next 5000 days. I can already see the personalization happening. When I enter the Amazon website, it knows who I am and has suggestions for books I may want to buy based on my most recent purchases. So who figured out the formula to create that kind of alignment for a customer? I do believe it had to be a human brain and not the AI of the web.
When he spoke of linking, it's all done by choice by the user. Yes, it's out there and possible. But, he made it seem as though there was some greater body than the human who was creating these links. At this point we've had experience creating the hyperlink, and we've all made choices about where to send our viewers. It's not really done by the ONE, but by people. I have great hopes for the upcoming generations of web-users. I think that there will be great opportunities and advances that at this point we can not even imagine.

Melissa

Week One: Jumping in with Both Feet!

What do I want from this class? More Web 2.0 tools to share with students and faculty. Another goal would be to be able support the argument that faculty need an override code on the filter. There's so much out there that can't be accessed when the school filter is strict. I work in two districts and in one I can't even post on the DCF blog for the state reading list for 4th-8th graders. We can't access teacher-tube and all that could be shared with students through that avenue. In the other district, the filter is much looser, and we can access youtube, games, and a variety of things that are filtered by the other school.
Am I anxious or nervous about any of this? You bet! Learning is one thing, but being vocal about the need for access to whomever, school board or district Superintendant-Yikes! I've been taking Library Media courses for the past two years and one of the things librarians are getting heaped on their plate is teaching tech. I've got a couple of things I rely on, but I really want to be as tech savvy as the students. I know my own 14 and 16 year-olds put me to shame. They are fearless when it comes to the Internet.
Okay, Internet Detective was good. I actually went through it twice. Because I've been trying to learn this same thing for several years already, not much was new to me. The copyright and plagiarism references made me go looking for something more entertaining. I found one created by the Paul Robeson Library for Rutgers University, posted on youtube. It comes in three parts, is entertaining, and I think for the most part okay for middle and high school students. Let me know if you think otherwise. But then again, I can't access it in the school where I teach 7th and 8th graders tech safety, netiquette, and research skills.