a web of connections: why the read/write web changes everything will richardson weblogg-ed.com...
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A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything
Will Richardson Weblogg-ed.com
[email protected]://webloggedlinks.pbwiki.com
NECC 2.0!!!
Changed World
Not About Technology
Imagination
July 12, 2005
Imagination
Imagination
“The ability to confront and deal with reality by using the creative power of the mind;
resourcefulness"
The Reality…
…The Web
1 billionpeople
10 billionpages
1 trillionlinks
The Emerging Reality…
…the Read/Write Web
“Web 2.0”
“We are at a turning point in the technology industry, and
perhaps even in the history of the world.”
–Tim O’Reilly (May 14, 2006)
50+ million Blogs
70,000 new blogs each day
1.2 million new posts each day
7 million new Web pageseach day
Link
2.7 billion links
Linking pages…
…ideas…
…conversations…
…and people.
“Society of Authorship”“Age of Participation”“Era of Collaboration”“Age of Engagement”
“Uploaders”
--Thomas FriedmanThe World is Flat
An active, participatory Web
"We do not realize how significant the Read-Write
internet could be." --Lawrence Lessig Author “Free Culture”
For educators…
…extremely significant.
69,000 Education Blogs--Joanne Jacobs
25+ million kids creating content online
--New York Times
Imagination
They are creating…
Matthew Bischoff
They are teaching…
…and they are learning…
…building networks…
…expanding far beyond the walls of our classrooms.
It’s different now.
Kids know it…
“…now that we have podcasting and blogging anyone can do it. You don't need to be some rich person in New York, you can
produce from your own home. It has also changed how we can learn in today's society.“
--Student in Clarence Fisher’s class
So…
Leveraging the Read/Write Web is not about the technology…
It’s about imagination…
It’s about thinking, literally, “out of the box” of the traditional classroom
Big Changes for Schools
1. The Web Changes Classrooms
From “do your own work”
to“work with others”
2. The Web Changes Texts
We can create our own.
Content Providers:WeblogsWikis
WebsitesNewsBooksForumsP2P
PodcastsScreencasts
“Rip, Mix and Learn”
3. The Web Changes Teaching
Teacher as Connector
Teacher as “DJ”
4. The Web Changes Learning
LearnAnythingAnywhereAnytime
“U-Learning”
“Ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate.”
--Mark Federman
Learner decides what, when, where and how she learns.
From just in case learning to just in time learning
“Nomadic Learning”
Learning networks based on meaningnot proximity.
--Stephen Downes
Learning is a social process.--John Dewey
Social Networks
Social Research
Social Photos
5. The Web Changes curriculum
Audience
From“Hand it in”
to “Publish it”
Students can teach.
iTunes K-12 Podcasts
AudiocastsPhotosVideos
Digital StoriesScreencasts
6. The Web Changes Literacy
Changes Reading
Changes Writing…
“On the Net, documents/pages get their value to a large degree not from what they contain but from what they
point to.”--David Weinberger
Literacy is Editing
Literacy of Networks
Working in distributed, collaborative environments
(Jill Walker)
7. The Web Changes Computing
Web as app
So…
Questions:
To what extent do these changes demand we rethink our curricula
and our practice?
What needs to change when our students can publish to audiences far beyond our
classrooms…when they themselves can begin to teach?
How does a teacher’s role change when we can bring primary
sources into the classroom?
How do we define literacy in a world where we must not only
know how to read and write but to edit and create and publish?
Challenges
1. Fear
MySpace would be the 12th most populous country in the world.
MySpace adds 200 new accountsevery minute.
--Wired
280,000 new accountseach day
MySpace friends can be movies, cellphone companies, even
deodorants.--NY Times
“When you meet someone, the question is not ‘What’s your number?’ It’s ‘What’s your MySpace.” By checking out a
guy’s profile, she said, “you can actually get a feeling for
who they are.”--Heather Candella
NY Times
We need to teach MySpace.
2. Change
“Change is inconvenient.”--Al Gore
The inconvenient truth about education…
US DOE, 2000
30% of 9th Graders don’t graduate high school in 4 years.
--Education Week
But change may be coming…
“School 2.0”
--US Department of Education
3. Control (or lack thereof)
Responses
Blocking/Filtering
Restricting
We take the tools they use out of their hands
The result?
Schools are looking less and less like their “real world…”
…and are in danger of becoming irrelevant.
So…
Be imaginative…