Week 1-Blog Posting #2-Learning 2.0

         Being a successful teacher is a bit like being a talented juggler.  I don’t mean the amateur version of juggling three balls either.  You need to be able to manage twenty some balls at the same time.  The challenge of course is to keep them all up in the air, in the mix, working together with the other balls, and adjust your catches and tosses so that none fall to the ground. 

     Learning 2.0 isn’t another ball to juggle, it is more of a technique that will help the balls fly higher and stay in the air on their own. Learning 2.0 challenges educators to engage the digitally savvy learners that enter our classrooms everyday with Web 2.0 tools and applications.  The challenge to engage and motivate students is one that each educator knowingly accepts upon entering a classroom. In order to succeed, the educator must present curriculum in a manner that acknowledges the capabilities and skills of each student. However, educators today do sometimes drop balls because current curriculum and teaching practices do not acknowledge and incorporate the technological skills and interests of today’s learners.  Sontag (2009) states that not only do today’s 21^st century learners have different technological skills and interests, the social and cognitive needs of today’s student have also changed. Therefore, the success of educators to engage and motivate the learners occupying seats in today’s classroom lies in the ability to satisfy all their needs and interests.  By incorporating Web 2.0 tools, educators will be able to develop skills that will help students succeed in the new world they live and will eventually work in.

    There are many ideas of what those skills are too.  For instance, in the video Education in the Mobile Generation, Elliot Soloway (2009) states we are undergoing a transformation of having students learn what to having students learn how.  Also, Howard Gardner (2006) identifies five minds, or cognitive abilities, that he believes are necessary to succeed in the future.  The five minds that Gardner identifies are: the disciplinary mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind.  Additionally, Daniel Pink (2006) identifies six senses, or aptitudes, he believes are needed to complement our left-brained reasoning so that we can create a new mind that will help us succeed in the Conceptual Age.  The six aptitudes are: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.  Although there are many ways to name the skills, there seems to be a general consensus that we need to develop students’ abilities to locate, evaluate, manipulate and synthesize information.

    What Web 2.0 tools provide is a way to make learning have relevance and rigor while allowing students to create relationships.   What Learning 2.0 demands is that educators be brave.

References:

Brown, S. (Producer). (2009). Education in the mobile generation. Mobile Learning Institute: A Nokia  Pearson Foundation Alliance. Video retrieved from the Mobile Learning Institute Web site: http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/21stcenturyeducation/films/film-elliot- cathie.html

Gardner, H. (2006). Five minds for the future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. New York: Penguin Group.

Sontag, M. (2009). A learning theory for 21^st-century students. Innovate, 5(4). Retrieved June 20, 2009, from http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=524&action=article