Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Journal #9 (NETS-T 4,5): Save The World With Web 2.0

Cifuentes, L., Merchant, Z., & Vural, O. F. (2010, November 1). Save the World with Web 2.0. Learning and Leading, 34-36. Retrieved November 7, 2010

This article points towards the ideas and themes of the global citizen, symbiotic relationships, practical advocacy, and more importantly role of these themes in today’s classroom. The objective of the article is to take what may seems like insurmountable global problems such as world poverty, the environmental crisis, and xenophobia/intolerance and present the issue in ways that solutions/avenues could be approached in the classroom by students. The means to accomplish is Web 2.0: online collaboration through websites, blogs, discussions boards, online advocacy groups, etc. All of the actions students and teachers should take to solve these issues are framed within the ‘five inclusive human narratives’: stewardship, spirituality, democracy, diversity, and language which help set goals for each activity they do in and outside the classroom. The idea one gets from reading the article is that it says that the classroom is no longer an exclusive atmosphere where teachers and students are only concerned with happened in their classroom, their coursework, their interactions with each other, their problems, etc.

Question 1
What is the biggest difference in the way traditional and web 2.0 classrooms approach teaching?
Answer 1
Traditional classrooms and teaching were primarily concerned with knowledge-based learning and instilling facts and figures-type content into their students that did not necessarily have practical application in their lives. Web 2.0 classrooms focus more on learning by problem-solving, collaboration and exploration.

Question 2
How is this type of learning more beneficial to students from a personal perspective?
Answer 2
Another important quality of the Web 2.0 classroom is the fact students engage in activities—such as advocacy and cultural exchange/awareness—that focus more on the selfless qualities within the ‘five inclusive human narratives’: students engage in activities that focus on other’s situations rather than their own academics. As a result, students learn and gain more about themselves as person’s in this learning process because they engage in activities that forces them to act in situations and towards issues rather than simply retaining information.

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