Happy Thanksgiving. I have to preface my response by saying how “grateful I am to you” for getting me onto the BlogTrain.

I think to answer your questions it’s important to REACH the parent community and educate them on the Wonders of the Web. Right? It’s so important to ensure that parents are clear with what schools are trying to do to impact learning and take it to the Global Communities.

Best to you and yours as you crinkle and frolic through the next life of the leaves,

Amy Bowllan

What you describe as happeing to new teachers has been happening for many, many years (at least 28 that I know of). Most new teachers are mentored by someone and end up learning a teaching “style” that is from the past generation of teachers. Most administration is even further behind in their vision for education. This is partly because they tend to be from the “older” era of education and partly because the pressures of testing and NCLB tend to push them in this direction. It is tough to be a new teacher and do something different.

Janice

One issue is the limits that many teachers have in using the web 2.0. Currently many of the teachers that I am in contact with have blogs blocked at their schools.

Janice

For me, there is no doubt that the web is a revolutionary learning tool, but it doesn’t “change everything” I believe about teaching and learning. In fact, it changes nothing I believe about teaching and learning. I already believed in progressive education, critical thinking, using programming, simulations, collaborations with the community & around the world.

Also, regarding the many “The World is Flat” references above. One thing that people miss is that the entire transformation that Friedman describes took place among a generation of people who had no specific training or education to prepare them for those changes. People always have and always will adopt to whatever technologies enable commerce on the widest scale possible. It is other forms of collaboration that are tricky.

Additionally, for a student who is somewhat disaffected by their prior school experience and doesn’t feel particularly connected to school, face-to-face relationships and relationships with peers and adults will always be tremendously more important than anything else - including technology. I’m a big fan of this stuff too (admittedly not to the degree you are), but when I see teachers who have incredible impact on their students not all of them need technology to have that kind of effect. It may change everything for some educators but it doesn’t necessarily have to change everything for all of them.

Important? Yes. Revolutionary/disruptive/whatever-you-want-to-call-it? Yes. Necessary to some degree? Yes. Does it change everything? No.

On education - how much can people now learn on their own, using the web? Wikipedia gives me answers. Blogs give me discussions. Open Source and Open Access give me tools. Websites put up by teachers and/or educational institutions give me advice on writing, on assessing information, on using common software. The web is the perfect tool for the autodidact. In fact, if employers start paying more attention to what people can actually do than to their diplomas and degrees, the education business could be in trouble.

I have taken courses where I learned little from the teacher, but found that the text and discussions were valuable. (So reading and blogs can replace classes.) I have taken tech workshops where I was taught (sort-of, who can remember all the details crammed into a few hours?) - tech workshops where I was taught some elements of the tool, but not how to use it for my purposes. (A paper manual and playing with the software for real purposes was the learning environment I needed, and it was cheaper!) Sharing an office can mean sharing expertise; learning communities can happen anywhere and they are a great learning medium.

And then there’s everything else. The web is a multi-media environment where (almost) everybody can play. Software often comes with some very user-friendly aspects or versions, like Paint in Window’s Accessories or iMovie in Mac’s OSX. Webcams and worldwide contacts are as real as the digital divide. Speaking of which, there’s increasing talk of $100.00 computers, and other possibilities. And schools and libraries offer access, and online accounts such as Furl, Flickr, and Writerly free us from the constraints of one machine and/or one ISP. This is a newer and more powerful communicative tool than the printing press IMHO.

And the social aspects - I know of dating and marriages that exist because of the web.
And work - what about the stories of call centres on other continents?

And so much more, good, bad, and impossible to see the importance of yet. So “Yes! The Web Changes Everything!” I just hope education can catch up, for the sake of our institutions, and for the sake of our youth, who need the “digital immigrants” to take leadership and pass along the “legacy content”.

Can it? Absolutely.
Should it? Absolutely.
Will it? Eventually.

It will require some changing of the guard and a system of teacher preparation that models the use of technology in common everyday instruction, not just as a part of great, elaborate instructional units that no one has time to plan.

We have a growing number of “digital natives” in our teaching ranks, but even they are immigrants to digital instruction. As some of the earlier replies have suggested, most of the changes needed to accommodate the read/write transformation are not electronic, but systemic.

What kind of change is that??? And Cara, I don’t know who Mr. Irving is, but I really like the joke.

Diana Dame

It is my hope that, as Gunther Kress suggests at the end of Chapter One of his book Literacy in the New Media Age, all of us in this first transitional wave will take time for some serious reflection on the appropriate uses of this new technology in conjunction with other classroom strategies. The Read/Write Web affords us some fantastic new tools for collaborative learning, publishing to an audience, and connecting the classroom to the outside world- but it’s not the only exceptionally useful tool in the box. I love my cordless drill driver, but sometimes a hammer and nails are the right choice.

I am a pre-service teacher, no spring chicken, and I’m only just becoming accustomed to a digital environment. I’ve seen technology at work in the classroom, both very well and a poor substitute for the teacher. Some educators are innovative and some aren’t. I believe if parents, sudents and teachers are seriously interested in how technology can enhance an ELA curriculum there will be hope for the read/write Web.

I think what can truly speed up and improve the process of the read/write Web is for teachers to introduce it to their classes. An introduction of parents, especially those who are concerned with their children’s extracurricular activities on the computer. Class blogs are start. This may get kids interested in blogging and then they could become a part of a larger community. It would be great for teachers and students from all over blogging together.

In J. Martin Rochester’s book, he tells a joke that I find disconcerting. “How many teachers does it take to change a lightbulb?” Ans: Teachers? Change?”
Mr. Martin, you have been teaching for 30 years, which is impressive. Your other pursuits have made you aware and open to the Web, which is more impressive. You are now passing that on to your students. Between tenured teachers and teachers who are meeting Tech requirements in institutions of higher education, ELA classrooms have a chance to bring this new literacy to the forefront and with it the read/write Web.

Kate, SUNY Cortland senior