Daily Archives: June 26, 2013

Week 8: Connecting it.

I loved this article by Dede. I’ve never thought of Web 2.0 tools are negotiating and ratifying knowledge but I have come to terms with that definition. One of the “truths” that I’ve always tried to teach students, especially when I taught WWII, was that books lie. They don’t mean to lie, but they do. Everyone has a bias, and it comes out whether you want it to or not.  We use to read text from the Germans, English, French and Russians when we studied the Second World War. It gave the students some perspective.  Web 2.0, as the article states, can add human experiences to knowledge – such as opinions, values and spiritual beliefs. We can question knowledge and change it as it perceived.

The video on Connectivism relates perfectly to Dede’s thoughts. Students, through connectivism, are given large amounts of information – or they seek to find it.  They must then have the academic skills to sift through that information to decide what is “truth.” Because students are engaged in active learning, the hope is that they peer review, create their own knowledge and always challenge what they read and hear! People are gaining the ability to work together to make decisions rather than being told what is knowledge and what is false. Like the Sieman’s article discussed, we gain knowledge through experiences. Wouldn’t it be great in the 21st century world to teach kids how to learn through experiencing text that is simply an opinion versus that with support and factual information?  This is what will truly create our lifelong learners!