I am in Washinton D.C. at NECC. Right now I am in a session (workshop) on "Strategic Planning Using School 2.0" discussing the role of applications such as twitter. This seemingly silly application has served as a major communication tool in covering events in Iran.
Whether using traditional or social media, how do you trust the information you are receiving. In a world where we receive an enormous amount of raw data, how do we evaluate the quality of that data?
What skills do we need to survive in this environment? We need to be able to evaluate. We can no longer trust an information source implicitly. We need to apply a constructive skepticism of both old and new media and information sources.
We need to apply good search techniques to locate the information that we need. Wolfram Alpha answers questions you ask. It doesn't provide just a list of possible sources as does Google. Microsoft's Bing considers itself a decision-making tool; not a search engine.
Check out Google squared to get the "chunks" of information that you want. You can add or subtract search terms to change the quantify of answers you receive. We used to know how to use the right search terms; now we need to know how to ask the right questions.
While interactivity is increasing, costs are decreasing. But students are not necessarily given the same interactive options in school that they experience in their lives outside of the school. We have the opportunity to bring experts into classrooms to discuss curriculum topics. Students can be empowered by the feedback they receive from recognized experts in a field of study.
One problem dealing with professional development is that teachers cannot get out of the classroom to attend workshops, seminars, etc. One idea was for teachers to use Moodle or other online environments, Skype, online survey instruments like Survey Monkey, Facebook, and other technology applications that make interaction with students extend beyond the walls of a classroom.
Someone just mentioned an online collaboration tool called Ether Pad. The URL is http://etherpad.com/.
Resources to continue the conversation about School 2.0 at etoolkit.org.
