ICT: The Future of Education
Access to the Internet, mobile phones, and television can inspire unparalleled creativity, as after reading, watching or receiving information, users/viewers can then decide to create their own content.
In fact, the old Internet, where we simply were passive participants or readers, is slowly fading away. We now have Web 2.0: the interactive, collaborative nature of the Internet based on contribution, creation and collaboration.
The new Internet
Blogs, wikis, podcasts, video/photo sharing, social networking and software services bring about “social learning” and information of bigger proportions. Gone are the days when we have to content ourselves with the available books in the school library. Now, students can decide on which information to acquire or use.
The Web is now:
- Participative – a good example is the book reviews posted by users themselves in Amazon.com
- Pro-sumer - when customers help create the product sold to them, like viewers and bloggers creating their own superstar in American Idol
- Collaborative - authorities like Brittanica are giving way to Wikipedia, where all users have transparent and cooperative relationships where they can openly edit the content
Here are the ways these changes the world of educating our high school students:
- From Authority to Transparency
- From Teacher as Expert to Teacher as Facilitator
- From Classroom Lecture to Going Beyond
- From Passive to Passionate Learning
- From Publication to Conversation
- From Formal Schooling to Lifelong Learning
Classroom20 is a good place to start learning more about Web 2.0.
The new library
The website LibriVox provides free, downloadable audio books in MP3 format which can be accessed in any computer. As volunteers of LibriVox record book chapters and release these audio files in the Internet, information from books that are unavailable in our school library can now be gleaned.
It is a fun tool to encourage students not keen on reading, and introduce bookworms to more great literature.
The new video
We must have all heard about YouTube, an extremely popular video-sharing site in the Internet. But what about the YouTube for educators called TeacherTube?
Just launched last March 2007, TeacherTube allows its users to upload short or long instructional videos to learn from each other.
The new telephone
Mobile phones have become so important to our everyday life that if a Filipino was to be asked if he or she would rather forget a wallet or a mobile phone, the former might be the choice of most.
In fact, it ceases to become just a means to talk to someone. It's a map with GPS, a camera, a voice recorder, a radio, storage for files, ad infinitum. But most importantly, it’s a way to communicate, and broaden and intensify our social circles.
Mizuko Ito, a University of South Carolina research scientist and coeditor of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, links the use of mobile phones to social learning.
She said that it can be seen in how young fans of an anime series can capture the Japanese broadcast, edit, put subtitles and release it in another country, all in the space of a few hours. To be able to do so requires sophisticated editing skills learned on their own.
These fans communicate and share information through mobile phones (instead of passing notes), greatly increasing passion for a particular topic, and encouraging students to learn by themselves to accommodate these interests.
From videos to telephones, to libraries and websites, content over the Internet is changing as more and more users provide content themselves. This is the next computer class lesson that must be tackled in this day and age. ICT is the way to go.
Sources:
Hargadon, Steve. “Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education.” Retrieved June 23, 2008 from
http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2008/03/web_20_is_the_future_of_educat_1.php
O’Neal, Chris. “Public (Domain) Library.” Retrieved June 23, 2008 from
http://www.edutopia.org/librivox-audiobooks
O’Neal, Chris. “TeacherTube: A YouTube for Educators.” Retrieved June 23, 2008 from
http://www.edutopia.org/teacher-tube
Shreve, Jenn. “Extracurricular Learning: Media as a Medium in Education Technology use outside of class results in self-tutoring and shared results.” Retrieved June 23, 2008 from
http://www.edutopia.org/extracurricular-learning
(Published 07 July 2008, Smart Communications, Inc.)
