{"id":897,"date":"2011-03-06T11:23:06","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T16:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/?p=897"},"modified":"2011-03-06T12:30:40","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T17:30:40","slug":"why-arent-we-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"Why aren&#8217;t we learning?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early this week I had the opportunity to spend the day at Google in Cambridge with technology administrators from MA. We met with Steve Vitner, Director Google Boston; Jamie Casap and Dana Nyugen, from the\u00a0Google Apps for Education Team and; Abe Murray, project manager for Google Books.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the discussion centered around Google Apps for Education and the recent changes with administrating the service.\u00a0 We also discussed the need for people to enter the computer\/information technology fields. But the theme that struck me was how do you foster learning?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/corporate\/\" target=\"_blank\">Google&#8217;s Mission<\/a> is to organize the world&#8217;s information and make it universally accessible and useful.&#8221;\u00a0 But this raises some questions. If everyone has access to all information shouldn&#8217;t that change things?\u00a0 Shouldn&#8217;t learning, schools, and education under go massive change?\u00a0 Are not people able to learn no matter their circumstance?\u00a0 If we have access to all knowledge then anyone can learn and rise above; school would become very different and learning would be available to all.\u00a0 The questions; its not happening? Why?<\/p>\n<p>My initial thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>People have access to information but do not know how to find, evaluate, use or manage the information.<\/li>\n<li>People have been taught to be passive learners waiting for someone to tell then what to know and how to know it.<\/li>\n<li>People lack motivation, drive, desire, imagination, belief and, dreams that they can succeed and exceed the expectations they have set for themselves.<\/li>\n<li>We have compartmentalized our lives believing learning only happens in schools so we don&#8217;t think of learning outside.\u00a0 The same could be said for work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Jamie spoke about a concern that even though the digital (supply) divide maybe narrowing, the divide on how we use technology is widening. Some users are truly just consumers they watch and listen, they may have tools, and access to information but there is little analysis, re-mixing or creation.\u00a0 These users are perceived to be tech literate but they only can navigate and observe, they are\u00a0passive.\u00a0 Other users are those who access, analyze, challenge, think and create.\u00a0 These users are learning and connecting.\u00a0 His research suggests this is occurring primarily along racial lines, a disheartening thought.<\/p>\n<p>How do we get the message across that learning is not limited to what happens in schools? How to we get people actively engaged in their own growth and development?<\/p>\n<p>The day left me in some pretty deep thought.\u00a0 Please share yours?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early this week I had the opportunity to spend the day at Google in Cambridge with technology administrators from MA. We met with Steve Vitner, Director Google Boston; Jamie Casap and Dana Nyugen, from the\u00a0Google Apps for Education Team and; Abe Murray, project manager for Google Books. Part of the discussion centered around Google Apps for Education and the recent changes with administrating the service.\u00a0 We also discussed the need for people to enter the computer\/information technology fields. But the&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/?p=897\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35,27],"tags":[127,223],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bethknittle.net\/WP_Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}