Article Assessment 2

An Educators Guide to the Read/Write Web

According to Will Richardson, the Read/Write Web is a "phenomenon that is changing the face of journalism, politics, business, and other areas of society". School is one of these aspects of society being changed.

Some of the tools of the Read/Write Web are:

• Blogs - a person or group web site that can be set up with little need of instruction or experience.

• Wikis - collaborative web sites that are information sites. These sites are self monitored in that they are edited by those who visit them. Falsities and mistakes are edited out quickly by those who contribute.

• Feeds - really simple syndication where a person can subscribe to various feeds of information.

• Social Bookmarking - users can save site addresses, but also save a copy of the Web site in a search able folder. It is social in that you can subscribe to another person's feed.

• Pod casting - amateur home radio programs and widely distributing them on the Web.

A Student's awareness of an audience creates a need within them to create a more quality product.

Should education change now that the audience is far broader than before? Teachers and students must learn how to be more able to navigate through a publishing environment that is far broader than ever before. These new tools require that teachers consider the usefulness of traditional ways of teaching, and consider changing them to be more appropriate for the connected world provided by the internet.

Some teachers worry that the freedom provided by use of technology will pose a temptation to students to be off task, or worse yet, to be indulging their own tasks. This is perhaps one of the largest hurdles that will need to be overcome by teachers and students alike. To culture students who can be trusted with this freedom, and teachers who allow it in the classroom, is the first step toward true integration of technology in the classroom.