"In David's talk, as well as, Will Richardson's there has been alot of emphasis upon blogging, wikis and the other web 2.0 tools. Are these being promoted as THE ANSWER. Technology then becomes the answer or are they tools for students to begin a dialog with others and find their own voice. "
It's interesting that I keep seeing this concept appearing in my readings. I am very glad that Stephen Fink's response (http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.StephenFinkNYC) was very informative and in my opinion very correct! These technologies are just a blip on the radar, but they are ways of increasing communication, student investment, and student learning. I'm learning everything I can about them, which is why I'm here, but they aren't the answer.
I believe there is a bigger issue at hand. I'm reading Herbert Kliebard's The Struggle for the American Curriculum: 1893-1958 and we, the education profession, are still dealing with the many of the exact same issues now that educators were dealing with in the early 20th century. I'm concerned that our profession hasn't been able to progress further than it has. The questions about what curriculum to teach, how do students learn best, who should decide what we teach, compartmentalization vs. integration, etc. are still being debated with vigor today. I realize that education has changed a great deal in the last 100 hundred years, but there are still some very similar fundamental issues being decided. When do we as educators build our profession, so that we can get beyond these issues. I know that with No Child Left Behind and high stakes assessment that the Feds are trying to reform the education field from a scientific approach. It is interesting to me that if I look at how the medical field has progressed I see to way to compare them to education. The medical field has moved leaps and bounds. I'm not endorsing Western medicine and not saying the medical field isn't without issues, but they have progressed and are now grappling with different issues than they were in the early 20th century. If I look at the psychiatric field, they have progressed and dropped many of the beliefs that they held at the turn of the century. Freud is no longer the guru that he was, but an important distinction between the education field and psychiatry is that they are not recycling Freud and we are recycling Dewey, Bobbit, and the reform movement.
I don't have any answers for this issue at this point in time but am looking for ways to reach as many students as I can and teach them in the best way I can. It's all about student learning and if these literacy technnologies increase student learning then I'm all for them.
I want to say that I love this concept and look forward to interacting with my fellow educators.