Joural 2

JOURNAL

Groff, J, & Haas, J (2008). Web 2.0: Today's Technology,
Tomorrow's Learning. Learning & Leading with Technology ,
Retrieved November 2, 2008, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/

This article describes social communication or networking through technology-based sights regarding individuals under the age of 18. The article names facebook, World of Warcraft and Second Life as a means for educators to grasp on to these communication aspects and uses them for academic means through sights like Ning. Educators can invite students into the site allowing for extended class communication. Also, every expanding technology allows for these sites to become more advanced allowing students and teachers to explore more ideas.

The article establishes what a great idea this is for everyone, and I agree, but I know some school districts don’t have the resources for this technology in every room, and student’s range from having all the technology to nothing. The implementation of this idea is great in theory; however, in reality I believe we are still a few years off from being ready to implement this full scale.

Questions

1. How do older teachers approach this technology with little or no experience with the newer forms of class tech that is slowly creeping in our schools?

First, teachers can take seminars to improve their technology skills and school officials will more likely be supportive for more tech help for these teachers. In my opinion, all teachers need to do try to implement it and the help should come from other teachers or administrators.

2. How do teachers keep the context of the site for academic needs and oversee the collective protection of the students.

Simply only allow your students access to the site, reject others from the site and constantly monitor the conversations and content that is introduced to the site. By making the context of the conversation about the subject the teacher introduced you keep the students focused and protect them from giving out information about them by only allowing the class on the site.