Over approximately five thousand days, the internet has become the largest social network in the world, as said by Ward Cunningham, the creator of Wikipedia. Everyone has developed a substantial dependence towards this cyber culture because of the embodiment of the internet such as phones and screens which connect us to the greatest social and intellectual network. Internet has had a rather large impact on education and will have a major impact in the later days when internet is even more known to everyone around the world. I believe that education should be internet-based with a minority of teachers.
As Nicolas Negroponte expressed in the ‘Ted’ video, children are the most comfortable in the internet world because they were born in this cyber culture, unlike most adults who are natives to this social network. Education should be internet-based because of the amount of matter there is on the internet. This would give the students the necessary tools to acquire as much knowledge as possible. There are numerous video tutorials on anything and everything there is to learn, which would make any child comprehend any subject. This link is very good because it proves that the Internet is important for education and it enriches the learning process for students. I believe that students should be given lessons to be learnt by themselves with the help of the internet. Now of course, you may think that not every child can be an independent learner and they need some additional lessons. I think that children should be given individual lessons through a school that they are signed up in while following the curriculum on their own. However, there would always be teachers from different subjects available to them for extra tutoring sessions. This would mean that the teacher positions would only be part time, making the Internet the principal teacher. This would help tremendously for our generation’s exploitation of independence and determination for the future.
One can argue that not all children have the discipline to learn on their own, but here is the beauty of it. Jobs descriptions, depending on the position, always look for the ultimate curriculum vitae to satisfy that position. The online learning process would filter the hard-working students from the non-determined. There would be much more knowledgeable students that could fulfill superior positions. It would also force students to desire the best grade and develop their independence as well as make them take responsibility because no one can do it for them.
Ward Cunningham was explaining that there will soon be a co-dependency in the world and that everything and everyone will depend on this tremendous machine for everything. He explains that at the beginning, when someone spoke about gathering all the knowledge of the world in one machine, people would’ve called them insane because they didn’t believe in the impossible. I believe that in double the time the internet took to get to where it is now, every business will be founded and based on the internet, every conference will be done through Skype, and every item will be sold off the internet. We are a generation of comfort, which is what the internet does for us. We can access it from anywhere; we do not need to be in an office to work expeditiously anymore. This is why I think that we need to modernize our children and make them learn in this manner. They would be able to use the internet as efficiently as possible, making this cyberspace the primary teacher.
Every day, there are one billion clicks, 1 million IM messages sent per second, eight terabytes per second traffic, 2 million emails per second, one million voice queries per hour, as studied by Cunningham. All this and much more take five percent of the world’s energy. Every human has encountered the use of computers and every human will become effective users. If all of this amazing cyber culture has been created in five thousand days, what will we have in double this time? Why shouldn’t education prepare our students for this dependence with an internet-based teaching program?
Catherine,
RépondreSupprimerI really like what you said about students learning on their own. I think you're completely right, students should have the capability to learn by themselves. Once we grow up, we won't always have somebody by our side to direct us through. This would allow students to become much more independent and more responsible. I agree with all your points. It's true, the internet has already made a great impact on education but has the capability to make an ever greater impact if students would use it to their benefit.
Great job Catherine, i agree with you that almost every child now a days knows how to use computers and technology and are the most comfortable, although some adults are also comfortable with computers also and even more competent with them than some kids. After all great job on the blog!
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