My introduction to the Internet was through AOL (American On-Line). It started with three words, “You’ve Got Mail.” I got an email account in 8th grade, 1995, and was soon sending emails to friends that were blocks away and to cousins who lived across the Pacific in the Philippines.
Back in 1997, I discovered the INSTANT MESSAGE. I logged in with an alias drloreto312 and would dial up on my 56K modem to chat in AOL chat rooms with half a dozen or so other friends from 4 PM to whenever everyone was called by their parents to come to dinner. The conversations in these chat rooms ranged from who was cute to who was better, Michael Jordan or Penny Hardaway to what exactly was due in Mr. Hill’s English Class. Did we seriously need to read 100 pages in the Great Gatsby before we started to discuss it in class?
1998, I discovered SparkNotes, an on line version of Cliff Notes that unlocked the codes of “literature” and fueled many a literature analysis paper.
1999, Okayplayer.com was launched and I had a portal to discover new music and keep up with my favorite band, the Roots.
Fast forward to 2009 and the reality of students is far different than when I was growing up back in the day, 1995, 1999. Web 2.0, on line databases, twitter, facebook, myspace, social book marking, wiki what, wiki this. Oh, you don't know what any of those things are? Well, just "google" it. Then you'll know. But what happens if you don't know how to "google" it?
"It’s jungle sometimes/makes me wonder /how I keep from going under."
Words from “The Message”, but thoughts that parents may be having and students ill equipped to tackle this world without real instruction on what exactly the Internet is.
The Internet is a galaxy that unfortunately educators have been reluctant to harness as a whole. There are some fine examples of exceptional educators trail blazing the use of the internet as a learning tool, but in the ever changing reality of our twenty-first century job market, the Internet is more than a tool. It is a destination for many jobs as computers become more and more common place in the work place as primary means of accomplishing your job responsibilities.
So while there are millions of seeds for teachable moments ripe for the picking in the Internet, many of our educators have decided instead to drop napalm on these seeds by means of firewalls and attaching “evil” connotations to places like MySpace and Facebook where a small volume of inappropriate content and behavior has tainted the social networking reputation. Labeling the Internet as a place just as dangerous as walking in the middle of the street, except you don’t see the cars coming and are never sure when you might get hit.
The censorship of the Internet in schools and the inadequate amount of training and lack of motivators for educators to integrate the Internet into education has left our latest generation seemingly a reincarnation of the “Lost Generation”. Instead of being lost in death and toil of trench warfare, this generation is lost in the Internet learning “bad” behavior as it is encouraged by lack of instruction and the stigmatization of popular Internet culture.
Instead of limiting our students use of the Internet, the focus should instead to be empowering them to utilize it. The question isn’t how can we do that, it is when can we do that as educators?
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David, I find your idea of educators censoring most tools on the internet very interesting. I wonder sometimes if the reason most educators do this is because they are truly concerned with the innappropriate content or if it's their lack of ability to use and understand these tools. I know that the world of internet resources grows at such an exponential rate that it's almost impossible to keep up with everything, however as educators, we should try to keep up with resources that are valuable and relevant to our students. If we don't teach them to use the internet responsibly and to their benefit, who will?
ReplyDeleteYes David I agree that we as educators need to empower our students to use use the internet more and not just in their computer classes. I believe that students and teachers should be using the internet in every classroom, every subject area and in every home. It's unfortunate that som of our educators still have become lazy and nonchalant when it comes down to using the internet effectively in the classrooms. But, I believe that with the wide spread of resources that are found on the internet, that all educators will become effective with integrating the internet in the classroom and feel comfortable using it as well. It is very important for us as educators to continue to develop our skills to keep up with the rapid growth of the internet and the vast resources that are offered.
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