Friendster vs Education

Why do teacher has to learn the technology? Why can't they just standing in front of the class- talking..talking..and talking..then, the bell ring..finish..end of school for today..

Yesterday, me and my classmates have a group discussion. Suddently, kak Aza said,'how can we change the layouts, like we did in Friendster?'. We started to think. that was an interesting part. We upload photos, leave comments, bulletin boards, send message, create blogs, share videos and slideshows etc...It means that the social networking is wider and became part of our daily life compare to our parents time...sorry to say that. But it's true, right?? In this 21st century, all the learning approach also totally different like it used to be.

Mm..the question is how these things can be applied in education? How to use the tools of web 2.0 effectively...If the students can explore themselves like the way they did in Friendster, it is not possible they can do the same in context to apply it in education. Don't even think that students nowdays know 'nothing'. Many of them are expert that us. Downloading YouTube or Mp3 songs - they like to do this kind of things. Therefore, WE, as a teacher has to guide them to be in the right track. Show them how this technology can be useful in improving their learning, not only for entertainment.

Within higher education, at the State University of New York, the Geneseo Collaborative Writing Project deploys wikis for students to work together to interpret texts, author articles and essays, share ideas, and improve their research and communication skills collectively. Bryan Alexander (2006) describes social bookmarking experiments in some American educational research establishments and cites Harvard’s H2O as an exemplar project. Alexander also believes that wikis can be useful writing tools that aid composition practice, and that blogs are particularly useful for allowing students to follow stories over a period of time.

One Humanities lecturer is reported as having said:
“I found out all my students were looking at the material in the VLE but going straight to Facebook to use the discussion tools and discuss the material and the lectures. I thought I might as well join them and ask them questions in their preferred space.”