[Last week due to a family emergency, I had to drive from Cincinnati to Massachusetts, and I’ve been catching up in my classes, so I apologize for being behind in my posts.]
During our first class meeting, Chip mentioned that the www dot protocol has been around for 15 years, and he asked how much has changed. We agreed that there's been "a ton" of change. During my 24+ hours of driving I thought about how the Internet has changed my life. Top of the list was that the very route I was driving was suggested by my computer and mapquest. I took my laptop with me, and the first thing my kids and I looked for when we checked into the hotel was the wifi Internet connection to check emails, get news, and of course my 11 year old needed to check on her neopets. I’m amazed at how independently she can use the computer. She types, solves problems and makes “economic decisions”. But if I were to think of one personal example of how the Internet has changed education, this story comes to mind. In 1995 Oma was quite upset. She had tried to help her granddaughter with a high school civics assignment to name the Supreme Court Justices and the Chief Justice . Oma called the public library for help, but unfortunately the reference librarian looked it up in a book and gave her outdated information. The granddaughter got a low grade on the assignment. Where did the blame lie? Today I did a Google search for “Supreme Court Justices” and got 1,190,000 results. Of course, to be sure, one has to be information literate enough to choose a reputable site (maybe check two or three to be sure you get the same answer)the website maintained by the Supreme Court of the US seems pretty good - http://www.supremecourtus.gov/security.html and the information there is amazing - biographies of the justices and the docket, decisions. I am wondering...Do we expect more of our students now that the Internet provides us with instant information? Are students learning how to organize and assimilate the information they acquire?
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I think that our expectations have changed as the web has changed. I think that we have adapted as times as changed but sometimes students do not know how to get through all the information. We have adapted to some of the changes, and so we expect that they can do what we can.
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