Educação e Sociedade em Rede
Atividade 5 - A Rede como Interface Educativo
“NETWORK
INTERFACE AS EDUCATION” is the theme of a group activity,
for the subject Education and Network Society, of the Master in eLearning
Pedagogy from the Open University (UAB) of Portugal. Our group is supposed to
watch and present a deep analysis of four videos (“Students Helping Students”; “A Vision of Students Today”; “The
Machine is (Changing) Us”; “The Machine is Us/ing Us”) produced by Prof.
Michael Wesch, which we share now with all of you.
In some brief words, the above records show
us how the world has evolved due to technology and particularly the Web 2.0, but
above all, how people's lives and knowledge has constantly being shaped due to
the network, especially if we look closely to an educational context.
Only in the last decade, social networking
has revolutionized how people relate and communicate with each other. Sometimes
they are not always used with good intentions, one must say, but when we take
advantage of its benefits it has a tremendous power. We also can say this in
general terms, once new technology has been a constant influence in modern
society, being considered quite often not just tools or the media that they
are, but also the change…Change in
the way we communicate, we present ourselves, we relate with each other, built
our personality and acquire knowledge.
Video
1
The video depicts a group of people coming
together with common interests, forming virtual communities, characteristic of
society Network. Currently, mediated by technology, forms of interaction, ways
of relating, were exacerbated. One of the powerful tools in terms of achieving the
objectives quickly is You Tube, used as a means to mobilize many people in
favor of a project, with almost immediate return. It's technology uniting
people sharing, driven by a sense of collaboration and humanity.
From a video posted on Network others follow
suit and promote similar actions, for the good of the other. To remember we can
cite the case of "ice bucket challenge", which took place in the same
manner, in which thousands of people throughout the world mobilized. People
turned one bucket of ice water on his head and challenged three friends to do
the same. The aim of the campaign was to raise funds for entities linked to
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
In short, we learn to develop a human
behavior on the Web. You learn a lot in the nets.
Video
2
The video features students questioning how
the education has been dealing with the technologies, ignoring them, insisting
on traditional teaching: students sitting, lined up in silence listening to a
teacher talking ... talking ... spit classes and chalk. No interaction is not
exciting, is not attractive, it's exhausting, does not promote the construction
of learning. It can be seen clearly a conflict between generations, as Prensky
outlines: with a teacher - one digital-immigrant, and students - digital
natives.
In this context, education is faced with a
challenge: how to establish with generating net a teaching and learning
relationship in which reconciles the interests of this audience with the
educational goals of the school?
This video makes clear the need to overhaul
the educational practices. Institutions must adapt to the new reality, absorb
the available technology, using it in favor of a quality education.
Video
3:
"The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube
and the Politics of Authenticity" demonstrates as communication means are
changing factors. These modified the form how we communicated and as we
behaved. Youtube exposes forms of thinking, behaviors, and it allows the
freedom of expression and the share of information. Man adapted to the new
technologies and, later, the new technologies changed us.
Video
4:
"The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final
Version)" expresses the potential of the Web 2.0 and reveals their
potentialities. We find more information quickly. Web 2.0 make possible the
sharing and interaction. Nowadays, nobody gets to live without his smartphone
or his desktop with Internet access. The new generation is dependent of the Internet,
as everything goes through that. Because that there is a need to establishing a
teaching based on the new technologies so that our youths can learn.
Conclusion:
The presence of new technologies is, with
no doubt, remarkable for our society. There is no way to ignore it once it is
here to stay. When misused, it is problem but when well managed our world can
explore to the fullest every kind of knowledge.
All in all, these videos show us very well
the potential of the media, but more importantly they are a reflex of how
relevant it is to reshape and adapt learning environments to reach students of
the XXI century and the ones that will come in a near future.
Ana Sofia Nogueira, Ana Polainas e Joadne Stenner.
