Chapter 10: Blogs.......

I thought this was a great way to end the book and leave us thinking again, but using what we've read and learned.  In the end, this just continues to back up my thoughts on embracing technology in the classroom and, even if you don't want it, you almost have to have it.  The world is rapidly changing and so is education.  The last 2 sections of this book did a great job of wrapping everything up and putting the ball in our court.  I found it amazing throughout all of this to have learned just how rapidly technology is transforming education.  The idea of a new way of being literate is almost weird to me but it is true.  We need to be editors of the web, be publishers of the content, and most importantly, we need to share it with everyone.  Learning is worldwide and we now have, more than ever, more ways of sharing what we know with the world.  I especially liked the focus on the big shifts of literacy and education at the end.  The content is more open than ever and students can learn anything they want outside of school; all they have to do is go online and find a resource.  With this, learning has become an every mintue thing, or as the book put it, "24/7".  This is a benefit for teachers also.  We can share ideas with other teachers and even use their ideas.  We can find alternative resources to use in the classroom.  Audiences have also expanded.  Students can now share their works and ideas with other students and have an expanding universe.  Their work is truly never "finished" because others can look at it and critique it, give ideas to the publisher.  We are able to share our ideas with the whole work and the whole world can use our ideas.  The epilogue is a great way to show a modern classroom and not only the tools you can use, but how to use them and how beneficial they can be.  This all just seems to back up my ideas of using technology as much as I can.  It backs up the idea of simplicity but also, why all of this is so important.  We need to set our students up for their future and by doing that, we must use everything we can that they might encounter.  We have to face the fact that a book just doesn't cut it if a student wants to learn a fact instantly or share something with a large audience.  I honestly don't think I'll do anything differently as a teacher.  I would like to have a classroom just like Tom McCale.