How might Wegners notions of practice communities relate to Prensky's on Education?
Wegner’s Communities of practice involves individuals developing their knowledge by working together, these individuals learn from each others experiences. This is similar to Prensky's views on education, the reason being is that it links to the idea that teachers should “pay attention” and “value” (Prensky, 2006) what their students already know. This is because they are “digital natives,” who are "fluent" in the language of technology, not only should a teachers teach but listen to their students and learn from them. Another instance of similarity involves Wegner’s notion of “Joint Enterprise,” in which the Communities of Practice are negotiated by it's members, this allows for each individuals input. This Links to Prensky and his belief that teachers should listen to the “input from students about how they would teach” (Prensky, 2006) because like Cofp it is the idea of working together, this process according to Prensky means that education will appeal more to the “digital immigrant” through the equal involvement by both teacher and student.
Friday, 27 March 2009
Week 9 Task 2
What differences to all this might the 'digital divide' make ? a) To socioeconomically related access issues within society? b)To globals access issues across countries and regions?
Of course Presnkyk's concept is assuming that everyone is connected to the internet whether they be the “digital immigrant” or “digital native.” But what about those individuals who are not even on the internet, they form part of what is know as the “digital divide.” In terms of the socioeconomically, it is for reasons of age, race and ethnicity, geography, income, educational factors. Firstly for age there are those individuals that of the elderly who may not have an idea about the Internet and probably have no intention of using the Internet. Although we live within a society that is not a third world country, there are obvious economic divides between individuals. For example, in the poorer areas of England technology such as the Internet isn’t necessarily readily available to all. So those children that have grown up within these deprived areas without the Internet in their home, can’t surely be classified as a “digital native” (Prensky, 2004) if they haven’t the means to be. As regards educational factors, a child's education within certain areas of the country maybe better than another child's elsewhere, this may mean that they may feel unfairly treated. As Norris notes there is a social divide between the “information rich and the information poor.” ( Norris, :4) Meaning that the level of digital development are different for each student and so these individuals may not be as “fluent” in the digital language as Prensky may have us believe.
Of course Presnkyk's concept is assuming that everyone is connected to the internet whether they be the “digital immigrant” or “digital native.” But what about those individuals who are not even on the internet, they form part of what is know as the “digital divide.” In terms of the socioeconomically, it is for reasons of age, race and ethnicity, geography, income, educational factors. Firstly for age there are those individuals that of the elderly who may not have an idea about the Internet and probably have no intention of using the Internet. Although we live within a society that is not a third world country, there are obvious economic divides between individuals. For example, in the poorer areas of England technology such as the Internet isn’t necessarily readily available to all. So those children that have grown up within these deprived areas without the Internet in their home, can’t surely be classified as a “digital native” (Prensky, 2004) if they haven’t the means to be. As regards educational factors, a child's education within certain areas of the country maybe better than another child's elsewhere, this may mean that they may feel unfairly treated. As Norris notes there is a social divide between the “information rich and the information poor.” ( Norris, :4) Meaning that the level of digital development are different for each student and so these individuals may not be as “fluent” in the digital language as Prensky may have us believe.
Week 9 task 2
Although technological development is on the increase, the actual global digital divide is “huge” (Dutton, 2004). Individuals within poorer countries don't even have a computer let alone the Internet, the way that they learn is through traditional classroom educational techniques which doesn't involve the input of digital technology. Shockingly only 10% “of the worlds population was on the Internet in 2002” (Dutton, 2004) this means then that these children are further behind than the unknowing “digital immigrant,” simply because they have no access to even a computer.
Week 9 task 3
Should education Stretch a person do you think? (What do you mean by stretch?)
The Collins dictionary describes stretch as to extend oneself to the limit. I feel that is important to stretch oneself to ensure that one makes progresses in life. If scientist didn’t stretch themselves to the limits then the likes of Darwin wouldn’t be a name that we all are all aware of. Education should push people to their full potential otherwise everyone would remain stagnant. Looking at “digital immigrants,” it is important that these individuals push themselves to learn about technology if they don’t then they are going to be remain behind hand. Children with the regards education need to “stretch” their knowledge on the likes of English, Maths, Science and technology because these are all a part of everyday life and knowledge that is essential. When we began blogging we had a basic knowledge on the Internet, but the series of blogs has stretched us further to our limits in order to extend our knowledge in regions of New Media, exploring conception we wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.
Saying this however, there is only so far that individuals can be pushed, I hate pushy parents who continually push their children to strive to such an extent that children have no social life at all.Week 9 Task 5
5)What is 'semantic web'?
Tim Berners Lee discovred the semantic web, it is a certain way of representing data on the World Wide Web. Information that is scattered on the WWW the semantic web brings it together, this is done in a way that makes it easy for machines to find and process information on a global scale. The semantic web creates a language that a machine understands and which enables it to process the documents effectively. The semantic web is also much more efficient than the web 2.0. semantic web "using explicit machine-understandable semantic, enabling the automatic combination ad user web services" (Euzenat and Perez, 2005: 1)
Euzenat and Perez (2005) The semantic web research and application, Second European Semantic Web, Springer.
Tim Berners Lee discovred the semantic web, it is a certain way of representing data on the World Wide Web. Information that is scattered on the WWW the semantic web brings it together, this is done in a way that makes it easy for machines to find and process information on a global scale. The semantic web creates a language that a machine understands and which enables it to process the documents effectively. The semantic web is also much more efficient than the web 2.0. semantic web "using explicit machine-understandable semantic, enabling the automatic combination ad user web services" (Euzenat and Perez, 2005: 1)
Euzenat and Perez (2005) The semantic web research and application, Second European Semantic Web, Springer.
Week 9 Task 6
How does it differ from web 3.0?
The web 3.0 is different to semantic web because it is this is the part that remembers your step when you for example buy a book, it records what your preferences were around cost, quality etc so that the next time that you came to buy something from the internet it would take into account those previous actions and follow your previous preferences and find what fitted these preferences. In this manner web 3.0 is highly intelligent because it “understands web pages the way humans do,” (Harros, 2008: 48) Whereas the semantic web simply carries out the process of un scattering of the information .
Harros, D. (2008) Web 2.0 Evolution into the Intelligent web 3.0, Lulu.com
It is important to note that to distinguish between both web 3.0 and semantic web is difficult because they have been considered by most to be the same thing.
Week 9 Task 4
Is there a potential problem being stored up for people is 'education' is tailored to fit their cultural and personal preferences?
Tailoring education to fit into an individual’s cultural and personal preferences can have quite detrimental effects. I do believe that with teaching methods there should be some “input from students” (Prensky) but the main influence upon style of teaching should be teacher driven. There are a lot of disruptive children within school so receiving their input on what forms of education would greaten their attention can only be a good thing. Also there are those children that struggle with certain subjects and so "tailoring instruction to meet individual needs of children experiencing trouble learning to read" (Baker et al , 2000:50-51)obviously is important, they should be given their preferences for styles that they feel they learn from best. But if children were able to choose subjects that they preferred then they could remove foreign languages, restricting their knowledge of other cultures language, attitudes and behaviors. At the end of the day educational styles are never going to be well received by all individuals because we are all different, this is why education can’t be too flexible as to take on everyone’s personal preferences just wouldn’t be possible.
Individuals immigrating to England may find that they want to keep their cultural beliefs as they move abroad. If I was to move to Spain I would want to keep my cultural identity but at the same time I would need to embrace other cultures too. It would be out of place to live in Spain, and not even attempt to learn their language. Cultural preference then means that individuals are potentially restricting themselves, learning only what suits them.
Cultural inertia involves those who are reluctant to adopt a different culture even though the external environment is changing. Cultural inertia in terms of work force, could involve individuals who have been working for a company for 20 years and are are used to their fixed ways. They are unhappy with the changes and as a result they do not want to comply with the changes that the company is making. So if there’s new technology that they need to gain knowledge of these individuals find it difficult to adapt to these changes, because they are not their personal preference.
Tailoring education to fit into an individual’s cultural and personal preferences can have quite detrimental effects. I do believe that with teaching methods there should be some “input from students” (Prensky) but the main influence upon style of teaching should be teacher driven. There are a lot of disruptive children within school so receiving their input on what forms of education would greaten their attention can only be a good thing. Also there are those children that struggle with certain subjects and so "tailoring instruction to meet individual needs of children experiencing trouble learning to read" (Baker et al , 2000:50-51)obviously is important, they should be given their preferences for styles that they feel they learn from best. But if children were able to choose subjects that they preferred then they could remove foreign languages, restricting their knowledge of other cultures language, attitudes and behaviors. At the end of the day educational styles are never going to be well received by all individuals because we are all different, this is why education can’t be too flexible as to take on everyone’s personal preferences just wouldn’t be possible.
Individuals immigrating to England may find that they want to keep their cultural beliefs as they move abroad. If I was to move to Spain I would want to keep my cultural identity but at the same time I would need to embrace other cultures too. It would be out of place to live in Spain, and not even attempt to learn their language. Cultural preference then means that individuals are potentially restricting themselves, learning only what suits them.
Cultural inertia involves those who are reluctant to adopt a different culture even though the external environment is changing. Cultural inertia in terms of work force, could involve individuals who have been working for a company for 20 years and are are used to their fixed ways. They are unhappy with the changes and as a result they do not want to comply with the changes that the company is making. So if there’s new technology that they need to gain knowledge of these individuals find it difficult to adapt to these changes, because they are not their personal preference.
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