Thing #5

We all must adapt to change.  I am a lover of music and I remember when music was changing due to the internet.  People were sharing music files instead of buying CD's and instead of the big music companies adapting, they tried to fight the change.  They sued the websites that shared the music, they sued the people who downloaded the music, they changed the CD's to prevent them from being downloaded, but none of this stopped the change.  They lost millions of dollars because they refused to adapt.
     Now education is changing.  It is changing from books, pencils, and chalkboards, to social networking, blogs, and wikis.  We as educators must change with it.  Education will no longer be bound to the schools.  It will expand to homes, libraries, or even your local Barnes and Noble because of Web 2.0. My only concern is for those students who do not have access to the internet once they leave the school.  I have children and I see everyday how they depend on the internet.  I have also visited some of the web 2.0 web sites and they are amazing and informal.  In just a few clicks you have acess to endless information.  You can provide students with imagery they could not get from a book.  As long as we can provide a way for everyone to receive this information I am on board.  

     I have already experienced video conferencing and distance learning.  Video conferencing can be effective because of one teacher can teach a variety of locations.  This works well also if you have a speaker who can only be in one location, but from that one location he can touch many lives.  Distance learning is also effective because it gives you the freedom to work from a variety of locations.  A person who may not have the time to sit in a traditional classroom can still get a quality education.  With both of these the only drawback is that you loose the personal touch.