A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything Will Richardson Weblogg-ed.com...

A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything

Will Richardson Weblogg-ed.com

weblogged@gmail.comhttp://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”

Link

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…