Education 2.0 and our Digital Tool Sites

When we talk about Education 2.0, our final project falls perfectly into this topic. Education used to be going to class, reading your textbook, doing assignments, and then taking tests, with the final result being a diploma or a degree. How much does that degree really mean in our world today? Yes, it does usually give you a higher salary, but what does it have to do with your abilities? Does it mean that you are proficient in the field you studied?

The fact is, having a degree doesn't mean that you know everything in your given field. What it means, (hopefully), is that you have learned how to learn, and that you can continue your own education outside of the classroom by your own motivation. Does the schooling we receive nowadays help us accomplish that? Hopefully, but I'm afraid that there are still many classes across the country, and around the world, that are still stuck in the traditional form of classrooms.

A Model for Future Classrooms?

For those of you who read my blog, I mostly do this for an assignment that I have in my History class (Digital Civilization, Honors 202 course at BYU.) We have been studying history from about 1400 AD to the present day, and then linking it to the effect that modern Media and the Internet have changed the world we live in now. It has been a wonderful, and challenging, class to be a part of.
I have also seen it become a model of what classrooms in the future might be like. Our teachers Dr. Gideon Burton and Dr. Daniel Zappala have focused a lot on "Self-Directed Learning". I see this as a direct result of Media Theory. The fact that electronic and mass media are so readily available at our fingertips with television and the internet is changing the very way we learn. Going to college is not the only way we learn anymore. Books are becoming less and less authoritative. The fact is, because information and ideas change so quickly in the world we live in, we need a medium that can keep up, and that is where Self-Directed learning becomes so important. WE have to take the initiative to go out there into the "mass media" that we have available to us, and be able to intelligently search for the wonderful information that is available to us on every topic.
This class has been a great model for what is available to us, and how classrooms in the future might function. As we have learned how to blog, search other blogs, use tools like Diigo, Prezi, and Slideshare, and the many other tools available out there, it has opened my eyes to the world of Education 2.0. The fact is, in today's world, YOU are responsible for your learning. It is not enough just to go to the classroom anymore.

This is one of the major reasons I am in the Digital Scholarship Wiki group. We are trying to make a user friendly website that people can go to to learn about the different tools available to them out there. Hopefully it will be beneficial to all who visit our website when we are finished.