I agree! I am a retired science teacher (do we know each other?) and have long believed in technology where it is effective, and not technology where it is not. When students collect data in an experiment, for instance, technology can either:
–increase the number and accuracy of data so that analysis gives meaningful results, or
–decrease the understanding of the physical processes students are investigating because they are too busy trying to understand the relationship of the magically appearing data to the physical processes the they observed.
I think that you also get at the distinction between digital usership and digital authorship. Deep learning occurs when students create something new from their existing knowledge–at least it does when their creations are meaningful. Designing and facilitating experiences that allow students to do this and also teach the curriculum is hard! We should talk about what you are doing with your student teachers.

Hmmm, I think that may have already happened. The majority of the people who use the Internet use a crawl/web browser, such as Google and Bing. Google definitely uses algorithms to point people in what they think is the right direction.

Leaving the web is no longer an option–we are hooked!

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Kudos to you for engaging your students with these ideas, Monica. I wonder how the activity will influence your students throughout the semester and beyond. Will you find ways to reconnect the thoughts to your curriculum? Is there a natural connection to your curriculum? Are you allowed to explore or is your syllabus set by someone else and fixed? One of the characteristics (and one of the weaknesses in my opinion) of many high-impact practices is that they are co-curricular. This condition makes it harder to integrate them closely with the curriculum. Too often, they are not implemented or tried and abandon because they steal time from the curriculum instead of enhancing it. I am excited by the idea of digitally networked learning because, at its best, it could become a method to teach a subject. Still, I know from experience that it is difficult for me to invent a way to do this. Please keep us posted on other experiments you conduct with your class. I am looking forward to updates!

The differentiation is important to make Craig, I like that you have done so. So many professors fail to distinguish between their undergrad and grad students. Regrettably so, because the goals are different, the time commitments vary, as do the diversity in backgrounds of the students. Networked learning strategies albeit effective in one field for undergrads, may not be so in another in the same way for grads.

What if the internet gets taken over by bots and algorithms? Do you think that faced with increasing material effects from cyber attacks and misinformation people might eventually just leave the web?

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Thanks!
To answer you question, while I don’t think that all online communication are bad, I do believe having all of our interactions be exclusively online can be. I think there is merit and value in interpersonal communication skills and currently, those who can transcend both realms easily end up being most successful.

Thanks Mary. On the costs vs benefits of equipping classrooms with tech. It seems as though the logic is that emphasizing the networked classroom means furnishing them with all the appropriate tech, which means constantly maintaining the most up to date tech, and that’s how you get Ghana! No one should get me wrong: I like tech stuff a lot. I guess the question I ask myself is how hypocritical am I going to be?

Alex I know what you mean about wanting students to be enthusiastic about education. I must answer no, however, I would not want students to have the same response about going to class as American Idol auditions. The reason why is that I don’t think the juxtaposition is fair or even useful to begin with. School is hard work, American Idol is what we do after the work. Of course I’m more excited about American Idol than school. That doesn’t mean I don’t want an education, or that I can’t both dread class and be enthusiastic about getting an education. Another caveat I propose: would you want education to be anything like entertainment? Is this not what politics has become–popular entertainment?

I really love your story of your first day of teaching – as well as your picture. I’m definitely going to have to do that too my first day. ? I also totally agree with your assessment of the classes you most enjoyed. It’s the professors who treat you like real people and act like real life people themselves that I really learned the most from and was the most engaged. I’m a little reluctant too of blogging and using social media in the class room so I’m excited to experience & learn different ways to possibly use it in the future.

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Love how you wrote this post– you should do a Star Trek theme for them all! Your the entire post is extremely well written, especially in your first paragraph: “Behind me is a cluster of the bodily performances, the mimics, the sighs, the smiles, the rolling eyes, angry looks, nodding ect. … The question is what is out there beyond the blinking black cursor?” Just beautiful.