Jason Ohler must be a fan of 2001 a space odyssey. I say this because I was put into such a frame of mind when I read his article "The Power and Peril of Web 3.0; Its more than just Semantics." I felt like at any moment HAL 9000 was going to ask me "what I was doing." This may be an acute sense of awareness aka paranoia but I believe this coincides with what Ohler discusses. The use of intelligent tagging for the purposes of quicker access to the infinite amount of data out there will cross the borders of personal and private. The concepts of intelligent & group tagging are pure genius but, I am a bit disturbed at the audacity of such networking. Not because it has been brought forth but because I know its already here. Privacy is a very sacred thing for me. I do not want to consider the indexes and indexes of products that are sent my way because they meet a certain set of criteria or match via intelligent tagging.
When we contemplate education and its processes the tagging insures that we have a considerable amount of information at our disposal. Of course the information and its retrieval will be the subject of inquiry. Will this be a super search engine that is "funded" by products much like the monster Google is today? Will the first 10,000 hits received be because of some type of monetary transaction behind the scenes? What kind of censorship and or standards will be available to children through such a medium? Who will determine the standards? Will they be specific to the US or will there be an international body governing this effort? I want my PLN (Personal Learning Network)!! As Dire Straits plays in the background)
The Personal Learning Network that Ohler discusses is a true treasure trove of opportunity for the learner. I can only imagine being able to receive not merely hits but pod casts, video feeds, charts & graphs or the latest headline news about subject "X." As a future educator i would salivate at giving my students keys to such a vehicle. But until we see some standardization, and some type of hierarchy of information dominance (presumably by educators) i shudder to consider such wide open access to my students. Ultimately it comes down to a question we are still asking even without the net, who determines what is valuable data or knowledge?
As an educator I would like to believe that I have a say in such an inquiry, but with Web 3.0 on its way there is no guarantee that this will be the case! After reading this article i know that i need to be an active member in technology and how it will be applied in the name of the student. Even if the effort is outside of my classroom, my attention is STILL required. I suggest to all my fellow educators to not watch this happen but to make Web 3.0 happen (for the student).
Ohler, J. (2010). The Power and Peril of Web 3.0 its more than just Semantics. Learning and Leading with Technology , 15-17.
I think anytime we are considering implementing technology inside or outside the classroom we have to keep in mind appropriateness and supervision. I also think the idea of privacy is a huge issue the more we switch to online formats the more personal information is being stored somewhere online. I think that technology has a place but it also must be monitored and focused so children receive the most optimal experience.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to also educate students on the fact that a lot of what we put on the internet is not kept private. We should teach our students to keep this in mind when they're deciding what to post online.
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