ED 7720 Week #5 Response

As I read the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” I couldn’t help but totally agree with the author.  I find that reading articles online more than a few paragraphs my mind starts to drift and wander.  I find it difficult to not open up another tab on the internet search bar.  Either something I read wants me to search for something or my drifting mind causes me to think about something else that I have “always” wanted to know about.  When I first started the program at UNH I found it difficult to read on the screen for everything and because of that I print everything out.  I will admit it…I print everything out!  The way I rationalize it to myself is that I print it onto scrap paper and it helps me go back to see what I read, highlight and make notes on the texts.  It also makes it more difficult for my mind to drift off like it sometimes does when I read online.  I did find it interesting that the author Nicholas Carr said it was difficult for him to read something online more than a few paragraphs but his article was way more than a few paragraphs.  Yet, what I found most interesting is that Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it accessible and useful”, what I think it does is it give endless information that causes people to lose themselves in “googling”.  What scares me is that the founders of Google want to make it into a HAL-like machine that connects to our brains.  Yes, having endless bits of information is cool but sometimes half the fun of learning something new is figuring out how to find it.

The core ideas behind Connected Learning are what make it so interesting to me!  The first, Interest-Powered is what drives most learning.  If you have an interest in something you want to want to learn more.  That interest is what makes you go a step further and makes you want to find out more.  Second, Peer-Supported is something that also causes people to keep going.  There have been times that we have all wanted to give up but someone checking in to see how you are doing/ encouraging you to keep going is what drives keep going after many setbacks.  And third, being academically orientated.  This is important because there is a reason behind what is happening/what is being learned.  To me all lessons are at some point academically orientated and that what keeps the learning going.

The Spires, Wiebe, Young, Hollebrands, Lee article talks about technology, etc. But what I found the most important is how education has three foundational assumptions, that the teacher is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT factor in determining students success, professional development, and support an idea driven and creative economy.  Over the past two school years my school district has begun to allow teachers to choose their own professional development on some professional development days.  What I have found is that it has given teachers the chance to explore various ideas that they want to include in their classrooms.  It has also given teachers the chance to be in charge of their own learning which to me makes everyone a little happier to be there.  I think that when teachers are seen as being important and are given the chance to better themselves it betters everyone!

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