I have been working with my Ferris State University students to use new media to engage them and help them find significance with their education beyond just getting a grade.
The old model of teaching has trained students to ask "What's on the Test?" or "What do I need to know or do to get a good grade?" The learning usually stops there and the students forget the answers the next day or week.
As Michael Wesch points out, the vast majority of information today is available online and all around us all the time. Today the most important learning skills are how to harness this information and share it, discuss it, critique it, and make something new out of it.
A little background information is required before we look at a few of the new media tools that we are using in the Marketing and Advertising classes I am teaching at Ferris State University. New tools like Twitter, Google Reader, RSS Feeds, Google Docs and Blog Comments will be shared and explained in a future post.
I would like to acknowledge and thank Michael Wesch, Howard Rheingold and Robert French for helping accelerate my learning and thinking on teaching and using new media in the classroom.
In the "Web 2.0 - The Machine is U/sing Us" video, Michael Wesch looks at how everything about the way we find, create, critique, and share information has changed. Some people claim there is no Web 2.0. Do you agree? What does Web 2.0 mean to you?
In the "Information R/evolution" Michael Wesch further explores the changes in the way we find, create, critique, and share information.
In "Did You Know III ?" Howie DiBlasi shares the rapidly changing, highly competitive global world that students enter after graduating today and how the acceleration of change is ever increasing.
Students report that they like to learn but as this video of a "Vision of Students Today" demonstrates the old ways of learning are not working and students are not engaged. Does this video accurately reflect your learning experience?
The new media can be used to bring students together and teach them to work together in new ways. Students need to learn how to explore and use new media and to use these tools to learn about whatever the subject is that they are learning about. Michael Wesch gives specific examples of how he is using new media in his classroom.
Robert French's PROpenMic and his thinking on incorporating social networks and Blogging and Managing Your Personal Brand are also examples of how to use new media for learning and sharing.
What do you like about these examples of using new media for learning and sharing? Do you see any challenges with doing this with your classes?
Are you managing your Personal Brand online? How?
I look 4WARD to your feedback.
Keep Digging For Worms!
"The learning usually stops there and the students forget the answers the next day or week." Unfortunately nothing rings more true for me. The “load and dump technique” is what my friends and I affectionately called this learning style and until recently I never thought anything of it. I think it is great that you are teaching in a format that focuses on application rather than strictly testing and are introducing us to new social media for sharing ideas and working together.
With the introduction of these new tools and media for expressing ourselves and sharing ideas I’m still not totally convinced there is a Web 2.0. Until watching the video "Web 2.0 - The Machine is U/sing Us" by Michael Wesch, I never really fully understood what Web 2.0 meant. Was it a new format with new technologies and hardware or a new internet project for those in academia? The name seems misleading, implying there is a new internet being created rather than new applications being used to increase communication and shrink our world. I still see the web as the web, only it has evolved into a huge user driven landscape of shared information bringing people together from every edge of the world.
I like the idea of using this new media for learning because familiarizing ourselves with these applications can help us start and advance our careers. We will be better equipped to follow leaders in our field of interest and begin establishing some credibility among the crowd. Somewhere I’ve read that some 80% of job openings never get posted because someone within the company knows a candidate for the position. Social media could help open doors for advancing careers by connecting with others from many different companies within a variety of industries.
I’m looking forward to this semester in your class learning advertising design concepts and this new world of social media.
Posted by: Reid_Skory | September 15, 2008 at 04:27 PM
Reid,
Thank you for the comments. I appreciate your feedback. Social Media will allow us to share great info., ideas, and sources related to design for our class. I hope you find it relevant outside of class too. You are off to a good start and thinking creatively.
Cheers,
DR4WARD
Posted by: DR4WARD | September 15, 2008 at 10:20 PM