In last night’s chat we talked a lot about this video:
We need to consider these figures as we’re considering what effect the web has on our social structure:
The bars are to scale. Notice the relative size of the whole of the US is a small fraction of China and India, and more importantly, the internet. If the internet were a country, it would be the third largest. What does that mean for our ability to connect to the rest of the world? And what does it mean when the US is about 20th in broadband availability and adoption?
The bars are to scale. Notice that the largest real city here is Mumbai, India. This graph is already out of date. As I’m posting this, the current population of MySpace is 198million. What does it mean for education that 85 million people in the world are blogging and almost none of them are teachers? What does it mean for education that almost 200million people have MySpace accounts that the school can’t access because of filters and “protection” but the kids can because they can do it from home?
We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of this.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:33 am
How does MySpace and education relate? I don’t know. Is it because students are avid computer users at home and not at school? How is MySpace that different from blogging. Aren’t both of them a place to put down your thoughts and receive people’s reactions. I am totally inexperienced with MySpace help me out.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Just about every student we have in our school has a MySpace account. We were informed at the beginning of school that if teachers had a MySpace account, they needed to be getting rid of it because it wasn’t appropriate for teachers to have. (You must understand that some of our single teachers were not using MySpace in the most “educational” manner) I find that technology is so misunderstood throughout the school administrative world. Teachers also have such a difficult time really knowing how to utilize technology in their classroom environment that more times than not, they just don’t bother with incorporating it into lessons. I also think that teachers are so intimidated by what their students know when it comes to technology that they don’t want to fool with it; afraid they will look incompetent. NEWS FLASH - I look incompetent everyday and I teach technology. Don’t be afraid to learn from your students; they have a lot to teach us!
I can’t wait to show this video to my Information Technology students; great stats!
August 30th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I agree with you Traci. It will improve your relationship with your students if you get them involved with the technology. Teachers are allowed to make mistakes…we’re human.
As for Globalization, the Internet’s population is a little bit less than that of India’s population. While the Internet may be the map to networking the world, the world is not participating. For a number of reasons including poverty, disease, lack of technology, famine, etc. some populations in different countries are just trying to survive and don’t even own a computer where in this country computers are a dime a dozen. Not to say that we don’t have poverty, disease, or hunger, but we just have a different agenda than some do.
Since we are 20th on the list of Broadband availability we still have an edge over a lot of the world, but we are not one of the top countries. Meaning we still falling behind some countries who have the means to connect to the rest of the world.
If so many other people are blogging and teachers aren’t then we aren’t using a resource that could be very valuable.
August 31st, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I always get a little uncomfortable when people start talking about how we need to be preparing our students for the technological jobs of the future. The majority of jobs in Kentucky are still in manufacturing and farming. Recently there have even been advertisements on local television reminding people that Kentucky is big in manufacturing. Maybe some day they will be replaced with technology jobs, but I feel like an idiot trying to convince my students that they need high-tech skills for the jobs of tomorrow when they can look around them and see that it is not true yet.
August 31st, 2007 at 6:10 pm
The question isn’t whether or not what they see around them is “true” but rather whether they can actually consider that they might be able to do something a) better, b) more fun, or c) pays more.
Walmart will always need greeters. The grocery store will always need clerks. The gas station will always need attendants. Artists will always starve.
But what about the scientists, the teachers, the entrepreneurs?
September 2nd, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Thanks for adding the “Shift Happens” clip. I didn’t know what we were last week’s chat. It seems the U.S.A. is a bit behind. I do think it’s laudable that the OLPC is sending laptops to children in developing countries, but I just wonder why children who live in poverty in the good ol’ USA aren’t being provided laptops, as well.
According to today’s, (Sept. 2, 2007), issue of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s paper, “Last week, the Carsey Institute released a study on child poverty in rural America, showing 27.7 percent of Kentucky’s rural children live in homes with incomes below the federal povery line of $20,650 for a family of four.” This is where I live.
Another thing, manufacturing jobs are leaving this country at a fairly rapid pace with outsourcing. Until we find a way for workers to survive on .80 per day - the rate that China pays its workers in the manufacturing industry - we need to concentrate on the high-tech jobs / professions.