Project 3 C4T-1 Summary

I have recently read a few posts from Daneah Galloway's blog The Thinking Chick.  First of all let me just start out by saying that it is refreshing to know that here are many teachers out there that aren't anti-technology and are open to the possibilities we have when we embrace technology.  


Daneah recently read "21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020."  She reflected on how far we have come in such a short time.  She couldn't believe that VCRs have become outdated, when just 10 years ago the idea of playing DVDs instead of tapes was insane.  She also thought the fact that land lines are becoming a thing of the past is amazing.  I thoroughly enjoyed her reflection on "21 Things...", and how she longed for these things to become obsolete before 2020. Paper, desks, schools (or at least our idea of them today) are all believed to be outdated within the next 10 years.  


I couldn't have agreed more with Ms. Galloway.  At first I thought the idea of paper, desks, and schools being outdated within the next ten years was absurd.   Once I read "21 Things...", I was convinced that the only way for us to truly teach our children, was to get rid of those things.  The article stated that schools will be nothing more than a "homebase", where students and teachers will meet before they go into the community to learn by experience.  The idea of learning through experience is finally overshadowing the practice of learning through repetition. Once teaching techniques move away from the archaic ways of memorizing and reciting, we will be able to finally teach skills, not facts.


The Thinking Chick Also blogged about her Facebook workshop with children at her school.  She taught them about the dangers of Facebook, privacy on the internet and cyber-bullying.  Her students were shocked at the amount of people who had lost their jobs, been evicted from their apartments, and rejected by universities because of information they had put on the internet and Facebook.  She went on to tell her students that she was in no way against Facebook. Ms. Galloway told them about a teacher who started a Facebook group concerned with the banning of plastic bags in Thailand.  His group grew to over 7,000 members and because of the public awareness the group had created, over 1,000 people attended his rally. She posted a paper that one of her students had written.  The paper was then tweeted by her husband, and re-tweeted by others, and before she knew it, she had teachers all over the world asking for permission to share her story in class.  She proved that one can get their message out to the masses if they use it for networking with people all over the world.


People need to know how dangerous Facebook can be, but more importantly, people need to know how amazing Facebook can be.  Thousands of statuses, notes, events, comments, posts and videos are viewed everyday. If people use the resources that are readily available to them, they will have the potential to make an impact not only on our hometown, high school, or college networks, but also on the entire human race. We now have the power to send a public message to anyone on earth-free of charge!