Learning Outside of School Reflection
Sonja Brooks
CEP 800 - Fall 2010
Kevin Kelly, an editor at the popular technology and culture magazine, Wired, gives us a perspective of the internet that is unfamiliar at a talk he presented in 2007. This perspective may be unfamiliar, but as the years go by, ideas he presented about the web have come to pass. Other things he mentions have not, but how long will it be before they are a reality?
Kelly speculates that, “Everything will be through the web… the biggest machine ever built. Everything will be part of the machine…The environment will become the web.” He speculates that eventually things will be so linked that, “We will be the machine.” If what Kelly speculates comes true, then the internet as a location of learning outside of school will be unavoidable. The internet will be such an integral part of our lives that we may not always realize how dependent we will have become on it.
Outside of school, learning must be self-directed. It must be self-initiated. David Diamond's MIT Everywhere, from Wired Magazine, 2003, presents cases of people turning on their computer to research materials from MIT at numerous locations in the world. Anyone, anywhere can access the course materials from MIT to further their studies. Anyone, anywhere can have access to any searchable information on the web making SDL outside of school even more accessible.
In1987 Lauren Resnick states in her article titled, The 1987 Presidential Address: Learning in School and Out, “Outside school, actions are intimately connected with objects and events; people often use the objects and events directly in their reasoning, without necessarily using symbols to represent them.” This has changed with the integration of the internet. In 2010, outside of school, our actions are still intimately connected with objects and events, but the internet is seen as part of those objects and events. In 1987 people weren’t necessarily using symbols to represent objects and events in their reasoning, but because of the internet I believe symbolic representation is at its height. We have access to vast amounts of information. Any self directed learner can find information on a topic of their choice even if we are not physically in contact with those objects and events.
Self directed learning also takes personal responsibility on the part of the learner as Ralph G. Brockett and Roger Hiemstra state in their article, A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Self-Direction in Adult Learning. “Within the context of learning, it is the ability and/or willingness of individuals to take control of their own learning that determines their potential for self-direction.” The internet gives us the opportunity to study topics that may have seemed out of reach to us in the past. It gives us the opportunity to gather a multitude of information on any topic of our choosing. Some of the information out there is credible other information is not. We have a personal responsibility not only to take control of our learning and follow through with our research, but also to make sure it is reliable.
Are we ready for the future? Are we personally responsible enough to sift through the information linked to us through the web? As Kevin Kelly points out, the internet is becoming “smarter, more personalized, and ubiquitous.” He speculates that soon we will be as dependent on the web as we are on our system of writing. If everything becomes part of the web, then through all of its opportunities and all its downfalls, learners outside of school will be logged in with the world at their finger tips. Constraints of learning through the web today are not the same constraints we will have tomorrow as technology advances and more doors are opened in learning.
Kelly speculates that, “Everything will be through the web… the biggest machine ever built. Everything will be part of the machine…The environment will become the web.” He speculates that eventually things will be so linked that, “We will be the machine.” If what Kelly speculates comes true, then the internet as a location of learning outside of school will be unavoidable. The internet will be such an integral part of our lives that we may not always realize how dependent we will have become on it.
Outside of school, learning must be self-directed. It must be self-initiated. David Diamond's MIT Everywhere, from Wired Magazine, 2003, presents cases of people turning on their computer to research materials from MIT at numerous locations in the world. Anyone, anywhere can access the course materials from MIT to further their studies. Anyone, anywhere can have access to any searchable information on the web making SDL outside of school even more accessible.
In1987 Lauren Resnick states in her article titled, The 1987 Presidential Address: Learning in School and Out, “Outside school, actions are intimately connected with objects and events; people often use the objects and events directly in their reasoning, without necessarily using symbols to represent them.” This has changed with the integration of the internet. In 2010, outside of school, our actions are still intimately connected with objects and events, but the internet is seen as part of those objects and events. In 1987 people weren’t necessarily using symbols to represent objects and events in their reasoning, but because of the internet I believe symbolic representation is at its height. We have access to vast amounts of information. Any self directed learner can find information on a topic of their choice even if we are not physically in contact with those objects and events.
Self directed learning also takes personal responsibility on the part of the learner as Ralph G. Brockett and Roger Hiemstra state in their article, A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Self-Direction in Adult Learning. “Within the context of learning, it is the ability and/or willingness of individuals to take control of their own learning that determines their potential for self-direction.” The internet gives us the opportunity to study topics that may have seemed out of reach to us in the past. It gives us the opportunity to gather a multitude of information on any topic of our choosing. Some of the information out there is credible other information is not. We have a personal responsibility not only to take control of our learning and follow through with our research, but also to make sure it is reliable.
Are we ready for the future? Are we personally responsible enough to sift through the information linked to us through the web? As Kevin Kelly points out, the internet is becoming “smarter, more personalized, and ubiquitous.” He speculates that soon we will be as dependent on the web as we are on our system of writing. If everything becomes part of the web, then through all of its opportunities and all its downfalls, learners outside of school will be logged in with the world at their finger tips. Constraints of learning through the web today are not the same constraints we will have tomorrow as technology advances and more doors are opened in learning.
