Web 2.0 Education

Posting written by Peter Scharf over 3 years ago.
Last comment over 2 years ago, 2 Comments.

CISCO has an enormous opportunity in innovating in curriculum using Web 2.0 technology to enhance inquiry learning by students. This potential in my view is largely un-tapped. The United States has fallen into a knowledge telling mode of learning in its No Child Left Behind educational strategy, with the result being that many children may find it hard to compete in the emerging cognition based knowledge economy. Creating a cadre of teacher users who will conduct inquiry learning and discourse using Web 2.0 ideas and concepts will be critical to CISCO's fortunes in the educational marketplace as well as to the competitive balance of power among countries in the world.

The current economic recession or possibly depression is as President Obama has suggested a failure of the educational system as well as an economic failure. The inability of many people to command reasonable wages in the global economy is a critical factor in the economic imbalances evident to all. Engaging students all over the world to understand how the major countries of the world navigated major economic down-turns in the l840's, 1890's, 1930's and 1970's as well as now might be an example of a shared inquiry that can be effectively conducted in a Web 2.0 learning environment. In the l980's I developed an inquiry curriculum MicroWorks, and Bob Tinker created a shared inquiry model involving children all over the world in developing shared databases involving climate change in the environment. Nothing we attempted could compare with with the potential of global inquiry learning in a Web 2.0 environment.

A proof of concept is badly needed, with learning outcomes defined in terms of skills and knowledge anticipated in the economy of thirty years from now.What do folks think? What is the learning structure we need? When do we start?

Comments

Ks_medium Karine

Please I would like to know more about inquiry learning: where can I find examples of it?

updated over 3 years ago, posted over 3 years ago

2231049_200x150_medium Peter Scharf

Hi Karen:  Thank you so much . Inquiry learning describes instruction in which students build knowledge through direct inductive experimentation. Jerome Bruner advocated in Towards a Theory of Instruction this model. When used in the US SAT scores were more than 20% higher than they are today. The teachers role is to be a co-inquirer with the student. Not knowing what the answer is to a problem is a plus uising this model. In the curriculum I developed using PC Works-pre Web and Windows- (MicroWorks) http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v10p303y1987.pdf we developed science, math, social studies inquiry lessons for example predicting population changes on an island in which Lynx and Snow shoe hares competed for ecological turf-doing the experiment is better than reading about it-through searching and sorting a data base and mapping it on a sine curve the kids discovered how the lynx would almost kill themselves off eating the hares and then would revive as the food supply returned..Cool. We also found that team building, thinking skills all improved using the approach. Also, the textbooks included all kinds of dated information-given the publishing cycle- and that the content did not stand up to inquiry scrutiny by the kids(sic). Now when are we going to build this using Web 2.0???? What we have with Web 2.0 dwarfs anything we tried in the 80's or earlier with Man: a course of study, BSCS Green version, or Havard Project Physics- Inquiry materials from the '60's and 70's far better than anything we feed to kids, Now--- Jeff, Paul, Simon??? Lets get going---The world needs us.

updated over 3 years ago, posted over 3 years ago