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.