I've been fairly diligent about looking at my google reader, but when I went to it this morning I had over 300 items not read! I know the culprit, it's TMZ, my celebrity trash gossip is cluttering my reader. Oh well, I simply marked them all as read and moved on.
I did find a very interesting story about how our brains are affected by reading and learning in a digital world. Everyone taking the 23 Things course should read this story. It directly relates to what we are learning. Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains this story really has me thinking and somewhat concerned. Researchers have evidence that reading/learning on the internet actually rewires our brains. With hypertext, flashing ads and other digital distractions we are becoming weaker readers. This is a scary thought, since reading comprehension is already a problem facing our nation.
Of course, no solutions were given just the scary statistics. However, it is my opinion that as educators we have to find a good balance between integrating Web 2.0 and digital media into education without abandoning what we know works. Reading a good "old-fashioned" book is not a bad thing.
Brandi,
ReplyDeleteI looked at this article. Very interesting.
Particularly this comment:
"When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the Internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain."
I thought back about the science notebooking class. The article suggests a couple of paragraphs down that to battle "shallow thinking" and move the knowledge into long term memory, you should do something with the material -- synthesize it into something meaningful. I agree with you that that reading a good old-fashioned book can be a balance with reading on the internet. Maybe our internet assignments could be coupled with a notebooking activity where the student must create, or respond to, particular content objective.
I like your page! Hope you're having a great summer! -Pam
Great point Pam. Any learning has to be synthesized to make it meaningful. Don't get me wrong, I spend hours reading things online. That's probably why this article somewhat scared me. In order for all my time to be meaningful I must find a way to transfer all this new knowledge to my long-term memory. Otherwise, it just "junks" up my working memory and I start forgetting simple things. This is most likely why I have to write everything down.
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