More Reactions to the Videos...Mod 3

A Vision of Students Today is certainly interesting. I agree with many aspects of the video's message, i.e. college needs to incorporate more “real world” activities that provide students with “real world” experience. With that said, the video also tended to portray college in a negative light. I totally valued my undergraduate experience as well as my graduate experience…the truth is I would not be who I am today without having it. It is true today that students are connected to on-line activities 3 or more hours per day but that should not negate the “good” that can come out of a classroom experience when students apply themselves individually or cooperatively. Me… I limit my on-line activities, as well as, socializing, shopping, talking on the phone...etc when I am in school, and I focus on what matters to me at that moment. I think we most definitely have to incorporate digital technology in our students learning environments it is what they need to know (view also Why Let Our Students Blog? …it gives great insight into how blogging helps students), but do we have to cut everything out that resembles a traditional classroom? Is a traditional class setting really that bad if those that inaugurated the technological advancement we see today are in fact results of that “bad” classroom environment? If we were to lose the traditional classroom for a virtual one I think we would lose something. What we gain in virtual accessibility we may lose in traditional human relations. Just my thoughts.

One last thought...I promise, I enjoyed all the videos and wanted to practice linking!

The Web is Us/ing Us: It certainly is worth considering. The truth is we cannot get away from the world wide web anymore! Sure, there are those out there who may refuse to use a computer, but really…they are lost in the shuffle of a thing called life. My grandfather sees no reason to get on the Web, but he really lives in a different world than I do…Oh, it is the same physical world, but socially and mentally we are worlds apart. The future (that is the students we are teaching) are part of this different world, a world even we cannot imagine. The Web is using us…it is so easy today, we do not have to worry about how to form the computer program we just have to point and click, and we can collaborate with a friend in India or South Africa. People thousands of miles away are no longer strangers. To think about it is amazing, where it takes a written book time to be written and published the information is likely to change in some way, but information on the web is in a state of constant modification, always allowing opinions to be aired and partnerships to be forged. It is extraordinary to think of how we can work together and create harmony, and the speed with which it can be done. Makes everything just a bit smaller. Very very cool!