Week 1 - Blog Posting #2 - Learning 2.0

     My nephew is thirteen and he has never owned a computer and has never learned how to type. He's got a mobile phone and every game system available but has never had a computer or Internet access available to him at home. I wonder sometimes if that makes him less vulnerable or more so. Less vulnerable to the dangers that lurk out on the Internet and more vulnerable because of his lack of ability in utilizing the information superhighway. What exactly is he missing out on by not owning a computer? With technology changing so quickly these days and net-books becoming more popular than laptops, a tablet to be released later this year and mobile phones that now create graphics, shoot films, publish blogs, and do social networking is it just the idea of the computer that's necessary?

     There is an organization called OLPC One Laptop Per Child, created by MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte which promotes putting technological tools, namely the XO laptop with it's Sugar operating system, into the hands of children who may never have seen a bit of modern technology before. 
     "Epistemologists from John Dewey to Paulo Freire to Seymour Papert agree that you learn through doing. This suggests that if you want more learning, you want more doing. Thus OLPC puts an emphasis on software tools for exploring and expressing, rather than instruction. Love is a better master than duty. Using the laptop as the agency for engaging children in constructing knowledge based upon their personal interests and providing them tools for sharing and critiquing these constructions will lead them to become learners and teachers." (http://laptop.org/en/laptop/software/)
     What I especially like about this operation is that the software tools are for expression and exploring. There really isn't a need to start with learning how to cut and paste, or type, or format a Word document....but rather to learn more about oneself, the world around their community and how this new technology could help them be heard. The big picture comes sharply into focus. 
     Now, refocus once again on the United States and its educational system. Fear, spread by the media about children being bullied on the Internet, sexual predators, and the dangers of waiting in a car alone while their parents shop, have put a lockdown on love. (http://tinyurl.com/n83tcs) And when there is so much fear, there can't be a truly open environment for expression; a comfortable atmosphere for learning, can there? Nowadays many children feel the tension of the possibility of the harm that may come to them through their parents. Teachers are told they are not able to use Twitter and Facebook and SecondLife or other Web2.0 tools to protect their students. Classroom doors must be locked once the bell rings. This, too, is a symbol of the state of our education system. Doors should remain open, minds must be taught how to make responsible, right choices and then left to choose for themselves. Oh, look at our new Smartboard, kids, but no one better have a mobile phone or it'll get taken away. It just doesn't make sense. It's a one step forward, two steps back approach that just isn't working. So, let's get real. Let's stop propagating fear. Let's open the classroom doors. We have to rip through the red tape. 

     Here's something about Learning2.0...let's make education the coolest thing out there. The best hobby to have, the greatest job to do, the hippest place to be. It's time for a revision, a revolt, a revolution...Watch how Web2.0 is being used every day by people in our generation.(http://tinyurl.com/mfpb59) Imagine the possibilities of the next. 

Resources:
http://www.laptop.org
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com
PBS: Frontline/Digital Nation BlogHer '09 YouTube Interviews :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3w7ukEaGiI