Blog Post # 2 Learning 2.0

It's interesting to see how the web can transform a world of educators to "World-Class" educators. In the FSO video: 'A Vision of Students Today', it brought to light the reason that many folks become 'teachers'. It is because they want to share a genuine aspiration for life with their students. However, far too often; when educating ourselves on how to teach, we forget "how to facilitate". It was quite clear from the video that our youth may be trying to tell us that they do want to learn, but they want to learn in their own way and not what we perceive to be the right way.

What is the right way? As the video suggests, it may be a simple act of tolerance and allowance. The adage "If you can beat them, join them" comes to mind. Our youth are really in tune with today's technologies. They're very savvy when it comes to using all of the communication tools we have been seeing during the recent years - MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, Google and using blogs and wikis and even their cell phones to text message are available to them - AND available to us as educators! We are now on a leveled playing field. The question remains: Are we willing to play by the same rules in our quest to educate? To explore some worth wild educational implementation opportunities, check out the following:

I've located a site called Youth Information 2.0 that provides some useful tools made by collaborators in Europe that promote the uses of:

• documentation
  
• webblog
  
• photos
• podcasts

Another link I thought brought the message home about learning opportunities is Youth meets Web 2. It is a compilation of stories by and for our youth and their quest to be heard on a number of topics.

Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. The term became popular following the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.[1][2] Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the web.