Chapter 9 Review

The long tail of education is something that was interesting to me.  This is about choice and potential for change and student preference.  On page 179 it says, "If, for example, an infinite selection of products were available so that teachers could choose anything that has been published instead of just the approved textbooks, they could pinpoint precisely the right learning materials for each student."  This is a very interesting idea for me as a future teacher.  I long to be able to meet the needs of each student I have to help them succeed in school.  I know this is far fetched and much easier said than done, but it is still a goal for me.  With this possibility in 'Classroom 2.0' appeals to me very much, to be able to look through and use the material that I think is the most beneficial for my students.  The big problem I see in this is that schools are often tied to certain books and curriculum across the board this idea doesn't seem to me that they would come to that.  Still, this is very intriguing to me and I do not know where the education system will be in a few years, but I hope it is more towards this.

The School 2.0 website is a website full of information.  In the learning ecosystem of the website is talks about wanting to encourage a system of not just school, but also home, school, and community combined that helps bring day to day instruction together to help provide more learning opportunities.  This is such a neat idea.  I have never heard of Web 2.0, much less School 2.0, before this class.  Reading and learning about it makes me wonder why more people are not aware of it, especially teachers.  The potential for this system seems like it would be good. To combine school, home, and community to help students learn better and learn in all places seems like it would do nothing but help students.  If our goal as an education system is to help students, then we need to be constantly looking for ways to make that happen. The website has a wealth of information about the School 2.0 that would be valuable for future teachers to know and current teachers to be shown. 

During this chapter, it addresses the concerns and downfalls within teachers.  It talks about the problem that teaches are too busy and have established a routine the like to try to implement a whole new system, especially one with technology they are not familiar with.  I see this as a real problem and I think for something like this to work, teachers would have to have a constant support, i.e. a technology coordinator, that would be there to help answer their question and guide them through a process that is outside their comfort zones.