Week 1 - Blog Posting #2 - Learning 2.0

The way we are educating our students needs to take a whole new dimension. We are currently educating our students in a world that is changing rapidly. This video speaks to that ever-changing learning community.

I feel that the way we learn is going to become more and more collaborative and go beyond our classrooms. I recently came across an article that mentions the learning community called Academic Earth ,which I feel demonstrates the learning of the future. Academic Earth is a website that combines lectures available from Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. Many subjects are available including English, Mathematics, History, and Religion. These are Ivy League educations that are available to anyone who would like to access them without the large price tag. The available video lectures can be embedded into other sites like your blogs and wikis. The lectures are sorted by subject, University, instructor, and playlist which makes searching for your specific topic very user friendly. The playlists are “thematic collections of lectures” selected by their editors. For example, they have a “First Day of Freshman” year playlist that includes 4 lectures and a “Wars Throughout History” playlist that includes 7 lectures. The article also has a link to a previous article that you may find interesting where they talk about getting a free college education online.

Now, you can’t talk about free education without talking about iTunesU. Apple makes life easier for us all, yet again, with this collaboration of online schools. I have included two videos below that really explain iTunesU, and the amount of information that is available to students. ITunesU can be a great tool both inside and outside the classroom with lectures in many different subjects on many different educational levels. The best part about iTunesU is that it is free and you do not even need an iPod. Simply download iTunes on to your computer, create and account, and you can access iTunesU. Many of the lessons on iTunesU also include downloadable content such as worksheets, lesson plans, and many other supplemental materials. ITunesU could certainly be the future of education in accessing textbooks and other educational materials.

Week 1 - Blog Posting #1 - Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is more than just and idea, it’s a revolution. It has changed the way we communicate. I recently came across the Blog on 90’s superstar MC Hammer, and the old idea of “You can’t touch this…” is long gone! Hammer has now become the spokesperson for you can and should touch this when it comes to Web 2.0 tools. He describes how many of the Web 2.0 technologies such as Twitter, can help companies market their brand better. He speaks of the urgency of why this should be done, because if you don’t do it someone else will!

Twitter can also be a powerful tool for teachers as well. Just as Hammer speaks of marketing your brand using Twitter, to teachers the classroom is our brand. Our students are on Twitter, Facebook, and many other social networks, so why not us as well? I came across an article called 6 Examples of Using Twitter in the Classroom. This is a great, comprehensive look at articles and blogs on how twitter can be useful in the classroom. Many of them focus on the use of Twitter in higher education, while one speaks about the use of Twitter in high school (you may have seen it on the Full Sail Blog). Many of Twitter’s uses in college classes include a way to organize questions from classes that sometimes number over 100 students. The video on high school students speaks about the DIG ME program in a local Minneapolis high school. They said they use social media to accomplish two goals, one to catch the attention of students and increasing their participation. We know they enjoy using this social media for recreation, so why not bring that excitement into education. The second is preparing them for tomorrows new media landscape. The use of social media will continue to have a growing impact on our society. Students who are prepared for this will be able to better adapt to the real world. We see this through the MC Hammer talk on social media that we need to prepare our students to be a part of the ever changing world of technology. A lot of people want to say that education is changing, but it is not education, the world around us is changing and education must adapt in order to prepare our students!

Welcome Post

I am Michael John Ficara, Sr. and I teach high school religion. I am excited to share my experiences with Web 2.0 and beyond in the classroom! My alter ego is Dr. Guido who is a tough guy who wants to protect kids on the internet!