Kirsten Winkler's blog - Interview with Michael Schutzler

I like hearing what other people are saying. I found a post including interview in Kirsten Winkler's blog, Kwestions for Michael Schutzler - the eBay of Language Learning. In this post, she talked with Michael Schutzler, the CEO of Livemocha. I found personally this site is interesting for language learning. People are learning language through the communication with people from different countries. I want to know his thought. They are saying about Livemocha's new business and how this site is helping people who want to learn language. This interview was interesting and I enjoyed it.

Social Networking Group

I think Classroom 2.0 is the place to get lots of help in my knowledge of technology. I am really novice in technologies and this social networking group is created to give help to people like me. I want to be a teacher in my near future and this group is consisted of members who have interest in education. It means when you need some support while doing some job using technology, you can have direct help from this social networking group. This networking site is actively operated by many participants and has lots of ongoing online events. Many members are working in the field of education, so you can get more practical information from here. This is important for me, because I have no experience in teaching more than 6 students. I hope to have lots of help in my future from this social networking group.

The learner of today

To better illustrate the learner of today I would like to use some kind of modeling.
 Sun wakes up in the morning and the first thing she is doing is to check her e-mails, blogs, and text messages in her i-phone. Usually she uses e-mails and text messages to communicate with her friends. She is a business woman working in the field of computer engineering. Thus it is hard to make any time to meet her friends in person. Almost every night she visits lots of blogs that related to computer engineering. There are many experts who want to share their knowledge through blogs. Even though her major in undergraduate was computer engineer, there introduced so many new knowledge and information after her graduation. So she is considering to take On-line course to better catch up the new information.

 I think the leaner of today is a person who continuously studies to expand his or her knowledge. Right now we are living in the world of technology. It means formal knowledge does not last forever. George Siemens' article,"Connectivism", quoted Gonzales (2004) about the challenge of rapidly diminishing knowledge life like below:“One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is doubling every 18 months according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD). To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.” You need to keep learning to better understand quickly changing world. To do this, you can use internet like blogs or Wikipedia in which many people share their knowledge. In this digital age, "Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing (from "Connectivism")." Furthermore, if you stop learning, there exists strong possibility that you have wrong knowledge that is not accepted as right any more. I would like to finish my writing with quotation from the video, "The Changing Nature of Knowledge", "It's not just what we know today that's important. It's our ability to continue to stay current as knowledge changes." 

Educational Change Challenge

I watched Education Change Challenge video from Youtube.
It really motivated me to think about our current school system. I think this video explains why so many students lost their interest in learning. Right now we are using the curriculum or method that can inspire and support students' interest or curiosity? I do not think so. We are just too accustomed to the ways that we were using in the past, and many school officials or teachers hesitate to introduce new technologies in school. Maybe there should be so many reasons that they cannot utilize technologies right away in school.
By watching this video, I can conclude that our current teaching system is focused on teacher's side not student'. I want to be a teacher in near future, and this video made me think about fundamental reasons to learn and teach. As educators, we have responsibilities in leading students' inspiration, motivation, creation and curiosity. I would like to quote the last sentence from the video.
" Do I create life-long learns and am I prepared students for my age or theirs?"