Rethinking Education: The World is Everywhere Now

The point of this is mainly a criticism of the way we do education today.  Because we are living in a world where many of the higher-ups in education are coming from an age in which computers were not in the classroom.  While computers and digital devices have now become ubiquitous, those in charge of educating are still trying to catch up to all the advancement s that have been made.  One of the examples that Wesch shows is the same example as in one of his other speeches.  There is a student holding up a scantron.  Now growing up, I used to either love, or hate scantrons.  Multiple choice or true/false tests are much easier to fake than a written test.  Back at that time, I was concerned with one thing - passing the test.  I was not concerned with learning, because at that time I was just told over and over again (even by teachers), "You just need to know this for the test.  After the test you can forget it."  Even back then, my lack of reason asked the question, "If that's true and I can just forget this... then why am I learning this?"

What this Video Points out is a problem within the educational arena in that we have not evolved with the times as quickly as we should have.  We have nearly the entire collection of human knowledge out there on the web and how much are classes actually using it?  Why are we still using textbooks from big companies (most of which the students won't read anyway) instead of going onto credible sites online, accessing primary documentation uploaded for viewing by the Library of Congress, finding real world studies to use in math, etc.  Why is it that we are stifling use of this AMAZING resource we call, "The Internet."

True.  There is a good amount that is not credible online.  And this video points out one of these snags.  The great thing about Wikipedia is that, when it was conceived, it grew very quickly because it was an online encyclopedia that ANYONE could add to... and edit.  The problem came from the fact that ANYONE could add or EDIT the information.  This made Wikipedia enter the "unreliable" category of sources found online.  Now, while wikipedia has changed and evolved and now has entry checkers, it has gotten better and more reliable, but it is still not school worthy and this is understandable.

However, schools should be making the internet a more used resource.  We learn from others and the more we discuss things, the more our brains grow and the more critically we begin to think.  Let students blog, rather than write in a journal.  Let students run a forum rather than a class discussion.  Have student work posted online so that the world can see it and respond to it.  That is how we learn and that is how we get better.  Allow the children of the word to speak and watch how much more they learn from that.

Wesch, Michael. [Michael Wesch]. (2011, Jan 24). Rethinking Education. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xb5spS8pmE&index=16&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp.