A World Without Walls...

Will Richardson explores the idea of teaching and learning through the internet in his article, "World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others." He explains that it is important to interconnect students with each other and experts that may help them and that teachers can become "connectors." By utilizing online tools such as blogs, wikis, and Skype, students are able to find people with similar passions as they have and learn from them. Richardson does mention that by posting and blogging school work online, we are facilitating cheating; however, he weighs in that the positives outweigh the negatives.

Richardson explains that "social tools like wikis, blogs, and social-bookmarking sites make working with others across time and space easier than it's ever been. They are indeed 'weapons of mass collaboration.'" I feel as though blogs are, indeed, a great way to collaborate with peers and experts who you may otherwise never connect to; however, I feel as though Richardson does not touch upon or acknowledge the amount of unreliable sources on the internet. If students were to learn primarily through the internet, how could they be sure that they are citing credible sources?

Learning over the internet is an interesting concept and I think it could be very useful to our own classroom; it it not vital. I find that learning directly from the teacher is better than trying to navigate along through the interwebs. Teachers should not be our connectors, they are supposed to be our content experts. I think that minor reflections or reviews should be posted here on our blogs, but the majority of our learning should take place in class, through hands-on activities.

I have begun to become rather interested in present-day politics and economy. I have always told myself that I would hate to be involved in politics; however, I am finding it increasingly important to understand right now. Let's face it- the economy is in the gutters and neither candidates for presidency seem to have much idea what they are going to do to alleviate the U.S. debt. I would like to see what experts are saying on the topic, other than my parents.