Collaboration and accessibility are the two main words that come to mind after reading chapter three.
Collaboration, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is, "to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor". This, I believe, is one of the main goals of Web 2.0 tools. No longer are the days of students being isolated in their work. No longer are the days of a piece of writing being created solely by one person. Today's world is all about people working together in the hopes of the end product being much greater than it would have been if completed in isolation. Wikis and Google Docs are just a few examples of tools that achieve this. Students can now peer edit and evaluate instantaneously. They can create projects together without having to actually physically be together, which leads me to the next theme of chapter three, accessibility.
Accessibility is defined as "the quality of being at hand when needed" (Merriam-Webster). Time is no longer an issue. The classroom is no longer a constraint. Students can easily work on projects at home and they are not hindered by trying to complete something solely in the classroom. They are free to explore, synthesize, create and collaborate from the comfort of their own home.
Student progress and achievement are now accessible in most schools as well. Parents are able to monitor their child's progress with the click of a button. They no longer need to wait for progress reports or report cards (or a call from the teacher) to know how their son or daughter is doing. However, I find that many parents do not use this feature, in my school at least. Well... let me rephrase that. The parents that SHOULD be monitoring their child's progress tend to be the ones who don't. How do we get parents to be involved in their child's education and not leave it to the sole responsibility of the school or the student to monitor their achievement? It does take a village to raise a child!
Collaboration and accessibility are also important not only to students and parents, but to teachers as well. Web 2.0 tools allow teachers to collaborate and access information like never before. Participating in a virtual webinar with teachers from all over the world, using lesson plans and ideas from others and sharing experiences in the classroom only enhances our ability as educators.
It is really amazing all of the possibilities we have now with the use of WEB 2.0! I think that starting out teaching having access to these tools has really helpd me and allowed me to collaborate way beyond my expectations.
ReplyDeleteIt does take a village to raise a child and just like your school, we too deal with trying to engage the parents by any means possible and it's beyond frustrating when they are just not interested in what the students are doing.