2. Reflection

Blog your reflections on the Who are the Net Gen? module, here.

• What have I learnt?
• What is still unclear?
• What do I need to follow up on?
• Where to from here?
• What other stuff I have read or accessed to help me make sense of it all?

2. Your attitude to ICTs

Blog your answers to the exercise ‘Your attitudes to ICTs’ in the Who are the Net Gen? module, here.

Do this multiple-choice quiz to test your attitudes to ICTs. What are your fears? That you’ll lose stuff? Can’t do it? Look like an idiot in front of the students? Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!

2. Are we Net Gen, too?

Blog your answers to the focus questions in ‘Are we Net Gen, too?’ in the Who are the Net Gen? module, here.

What elements of Net Gen behaviour do you see in yourself? Do you find yourself switching more and more between tasks rather than focusing on just one? Are you less tolerant of lack of information? Poor information? Sloooooooow information? Are you searching less for one type of format (e.g., journals) and more for ‘the answer’ regardless of format? (i.e., a legitimate-looking website will do …) If you want to know more, check out the CIBER report that examines the Information behaviour of the researcher of the future (pdf).

2. The response of education

Blog your answers to the focus questions in ‘The response of education’ in the Who are the Net Gen? module, here.

How might we respond to these trends and needs as teachers? What sorts of learning environments might these students need? Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!

2. What makes a Net Gen?

Blog your answers to the focus questions in ‘What makes a Net Gen’ in the Who are the Net Gen? module, here.

Who do you think the Net Gen are? Are they the same as the ‘Y’ generation? What age group are they? Are ‘their’ learning styles different from ‘ours’? Is this is all just a load of old baloney and a moral panic over nothing?

What characterises their attitudes towards

• Information?
• Community?
• Collaboration?
• Communication?
• Choice?
• Complexity?

What makes a ‘net’ generation? Is it age or ways of behaving online, regardless of age? Does actually growing up with Web 2.0 technologies actually make any difference? Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!

2. Who are the Net Gen?

Place any general responses you have to the module What is Web 2.0? here.

1. How are you feeling?

Blog your answers to the focus questions ‘How are you feeling’ in the What is Web 2.0? module, here.

Are you feeling a bit ‘freaked out’ by the pace of change in technology? What are you most worried about? Why? What are your concerns about what’s going on online these days? What are you afraid of letting go of? What do you think all this Web 2.0 stuff will mean for our culture? Our society? Education? Our ways of being human? What are your fears founded upon? Evidence, information and reasoning or gut feeling?

1. Compare Mindsets 1.0 and 2.0

Blog your answers to the exercise, ‘Compare Mindsets 1.0 and 2.0’ in the What is Web 2.0? module, here.

Go through each ‘mindset’ (Lankshear and Knobel (pdf)) line by line, below. Find examples of each mindset, e.g., ‘Product as artefact = book; Product as service = blog site”. Which mindset do you belong to and when? What about your students: which mindset are they most comfortable with? What are the values inherent in each mindset? What about the problems?

Mindset 1.0	Mindset 2.0
The world is appropriately interpreted, understood and responded to in broadly physical industrial terms	The world cannot adequately be interpreted, understood and responded to in physical-industrial terms only
Products as material artifacts	Products as enabling services
Tools for producing	Tools for mediating and relating
Focus on individual intelligence	Focus on collective intelligence
Expertise and authority ‘located’ in individuals and institutions	Expertise and authority are distributed and collective; hybrid experts
Space as enclosed and purpose specific	Space as open, continuous and fluid
Social relations of ‘bookspace’; a stable ‘textual order’	Social relations of emerging ‘digital media space’; texts in change

1. Compare Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Blog your answers to the exercise, ‘Compare Web 1.0 and Web 2.0’ in the What is Web 2.0? module, here.

Go through O’Reilly’s below, above, line by line. Identify the things you know about, e.g., ‘Britiannica Online –> Wikipedia’. How are those things different between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0? What different characteristics do they have? Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!

Source: http://res.sys-con.com/story/sep07/428865/Table-1-rev.jpg

1. Shifts in technology

Blog your answers to the focus questions ‘Shifts in technology’ in the What is Web 2.0? module, here.

What shifts have you noticed in the way people use the web in the past two years or so? What have been some of the recent developments you’ve noticed? I.e., once we had websites, but now we’ve got [insert answer!]. What are some of the buzzwords you’ve been hearing? Is email the only way of communicating over the internet these days? What is iTunes??!!! What is FaceBook??!!! How can you see these things impacting upon education? Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!