After watching internet culture expert, Dr. Wesch’s, talk, I realized that I am not as technologically savvy as I had thought. I’d like to think I have some skills on the internet, definitely in the social networking aspect, as I grew up with AIM/instant messaging and MySpace in middle school, which warped into the creation of Facebook in 9th grade and Twitter in my later high school career. Being a social butterfly has always been my main reason for internet usage, something that is quite unfortunate for my academic achievement! Dr. Wesch expanded my thoughts on the influence of internet today and it’s prevalence in the classroom and other educational settings. I found this information particularly interesting because I am training to be an elementary school teacher! I was very excited to start the course off with a combination of the topics of education and technology. During my freshman year at Mary Washington, I took a freshman seminar entitled Mash-Up and Remix in Cyberspace (or something of the sort). I believe this course exposed me to the internet more than any other (so far), while using Dr. Wesch’s perspective. I watched this video in segments over the past week and took some notes on some of the points I found most thought-provoking.

I really enjoyed the title of his presentation, “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able.” Knowledgeability is knowing how to do things versus memorizing and regurgitating information that probably isn’t even very beneficial in the long scheme of things. The ability to be able to do things and perform tasks is very important in addition to basic background knowledge for students. This is where experiential education and learning comes in to play. I am very passionate about giving students opportunities and experiences to learn, rather than lecturing them in the front of the classroom. I think this is definitely a point that Dr. Wesch was trying to communicate through his presentation.

I found the Dove commercial particularly interesting, even inspiring at first! Although, later, I was very disappointed by the contrasting viewpoints displayed by the company. The point Dr. Wesch made about information literacy pairs with some of my concerns about the internet and it’s use in schools. How do we train our students to know what’s real and what’s fake? What information is reliable? When heavily incorporating the internet in schools, I find it extremely important to educate students on how to weed through irrelevant and misleading sources. If teachers approach the use of the internet as a tool, instead of a distraction, incorporation in the classroom will be much more successful. Like Dr. Wesch said, rather than making technology (internet usage) a requirement, teachers and professors should use it as an aid, students will indirectly learn how to operate it, in hopes for a higher academic goal.

I think blogging is really beneficial because students can display their ideas, while other students can comment with additional ideas, even contrasting ones. These types of collaborations represent reason for so many advances in the cyber world.