Module+1

The first part of this module was to create this wiki-- which I've completed, as should be apparent if you're reading this --but the second part requires a bit more thought, and the examination of the following videos:

media type="youtube" key="cCnqF132l1c" height="390" width="480" Warlick asserts that, to be a reader, a processor of information, and a communicator in "this new information landscape" of the world with the Internet requires the ability to "expose truth" in information. The distinction is between //knowing// something or //having access// to that knowledge, and being able to //understand// and //utilize// that knowledge. A recent (201[|1) study] found as an accidental result of the research and experimentation process that a significant number of students utilizing Wikipedia as an academic resource were failing to grasp a critical aspect of the online encyclopedia: that //anyone//, including the students and their classmates can edit articles on Wikipedia. These students simply accessed the information on Wikipedia without evaluating critically by checking details like the discussion pages of articles (in which contributors to the encyclopedia could voice opinions about the contents of an article) or the edit history of the article, both of which would show at a glance: Bias of authors and other presenters of information is always a factor, but is usually mitigated on an academic level by the contributions of peer reviewers and professional editors. Wikipedia allows almost instantaneous (hence the name, from the Hawaiian creole word //wikiwiki//, meaning "quickly") edits and creation of new articles with review by admins and other visitors to the site only occurring //after// edits have been made and the new version of an article is published. In the time between erroneous or deliberately false information being published and its correction by other editors, a casual user of Wikipedia may visit and assume inaccurate statements to be valid. Interviews with several subjects suggested that students were informed of how to use Wikipedia by members of their peer group and their teachers, and it is here that we see the need for teachers to provide students with the tools by which they may expose truth, as Warlick advises. It is not enough to //direct// students to use online resources (nor, even more passively //permit// the use of same); teachers in the 21st century must //instruct// students in the use of those resources. To do so requires that teachers remember that they are as much learners as their students are, and remain actively aware of what resources students have available to them, and what the ideal uses of those resources may be.
 * **Who** had been editing the article,
 * **When** the edits were made to the article,
 * **What** changes they made,
 * and **Why** they made those changes.

media type="youtube" key="pMcfrLYDm2U" height="390" width="480" I grew up in the midst of the Shift, as it began to Happen. I am from the generation that was tucked into bed by my parents, dreaming of [|giant alien robots that transformed into cars and planes], or [|rockstar/fashionistas who used hard-light holograms for their stage shows]. [|These fantasy technologies] [|are becoming real]: the technologies that grew up with my generation and each generation that follows me are growing up even faster than we are, changing from the infancy of mere ideas to mature technologies that each revolutionize and remake the world in unheard-of ways. When this video was created, MySpace was still new, and still expanding with new user profiles at an exponential rate. I myself signed up for the site in those days, and yet the scant few years since have seen the social significance of MySpace among young people be completely eclipsed by an innovation pushed forward by one of my very own high school classmates: Facebook. That my generation and those following it grew up with (and are now contributing to as inventors and innovators) these changes means we are both as familiar with their use and as dependent upon them as a fish is to water. We swim and breathe these new technologies, and as the stream of innovation moves on, we move with it. This is not a boast, not some tribute to the great virtues of my generation and those that follow, for it shows our flaws: to continue the metaphor, we cannot look too far back upstream, and we cannot see out of the water too easily. It is all too often a problem with my generation-- as with any generation, I suppose --that we have difficulty relating to the previous generations. What seems natural to us, things that would need no explanation: these things frustrate our forebears. Just the same, even as we may prove adaptable to changes in technology and social media at present, we cannot know just how the exponential growth of those may outpace our ability to utilize them, while a later generation adapts to them with ease by virtue of being born into the height of those innovations. My generation, and those that follow as this Shift continues, would do well to remember that we stand on the shoulders of giants: every innovation is built over earlier ones, and this exponential growth would not occur if it had no foundation. This applies to all aspects of contemporary life, but also to teaching and learning: we can better understand our new tools and those to come by comprehending the tools that preceded them, and we can best teach others to use these tools not simply by dropping them in the stream of innovation and expecting them to swim, but by going back to where they are coming from, and working with them through the steps that led to these innovations. This applies to earlier generations teaching those who live in the midst of rapid innovation, as well. One should not make the mistake of assuming that adaptation to new ways need always mean ignoring old ways. Rather, those who teach should take the chance whenever possible to share with learners the roots of the innovations they examine. The internet and text messaging could not have arisen without land-line phones, nor indeed even telegraphs, and aspects of these technologies and their impact on our culture and society continue to inform their descendant technologies.