Week 2 - Blog Posting #4 -21st Century Skills & Lifelong Learning

There is an indisputable change in the way we are approaching education. This change is not only the advance, but also the integration of technology into the classroom. The new term of educational interaction with the Internet has very often been called Web 2.0 or Classroom 2.0. Teachers today can be classified into two categories Before Computers (BC) and After Computers (AC). This is the term very often referred too as Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. I see these two groups are not always classified as younger and older teachers, but those educators who are comfortable with using technology in the classroom, and those who are not. Very often it is important to get these two groups to work together and each must be able to communicate well with one another and have the desire to learn (Goldfield, 2001). Teachers have a powerful ability to reach their students, but many teachers forget that they are also great learners. The faculty members who are integrating technology in the classroom are also teachers, and therefore cannot only teach students, but also teachers. It is important that these teachers using technology are apart of the worldwide technology community. They should be contributing to the Web 2.0 community (Davis, 2006). This will help them be better teachers to the students and other faculty members. For true success and integration of technology, it is important to evaluate our teachers as we do our students. Schools must look at their staff and se who can be the teachers to teach teachers; who is BC, and who is AC. By working with these groups and evaluating, you can design an educational program to help all teachers better understand and develop technology.

Evan after this mastery learning does not stop. A whole new level of learning takes place, the actions of filtering good information from bad. The Web 2.0 community can be very “noisy” if you don’t know how to listen. I composed the video below to take a look at just how much information is available to us, and how the Web 2.0 community can sound very noisy if we don’t know how to listen!

Davis, V. A. (2006, October 12). The Web 2.0 Classroom . Retrieved September 15, 2009, from
Coming of Age V2.0 : http://k12online.wm.edu/Web20classroom.pdf.

Goldfield, J. D. (2001, Spring). Technology Trends in Faculty Development, Preprofessional
Training, and the Support of Language and Literature Departments. Retrieved September 14, 2009, from ADFL Bullitin: http://web2.adfl.org/ADFL/bulletin/v32n3/323102.htm