Unknown. (Date unknown). “Shift Together.” http://www.ci-shift.com. Retrieved February 22, 2011

Education is changing.  Quickly and without end.  We need to make a shift.  If we cannot change gears and climb that hill, we will continue to fall further and further behind in education.  Will Richardson outlines 10 “Big Shifts” in Education in his book, Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.  These give us insight into ways that we can prepare ourselves and our students to succeed in this ever-changing landscape.  One that really hit me is the fact that students, teachers, parents, and adminstrators need to realize that there are “many, many teachers” that allow students to engage in 24/7 learning.  This idea is at the heart of social networking and building collaborative environments online.  As students become “connected” to others near them and around the world, there education has the potential to take off.  The teacher no longer is the one who stands in front of the classroom.  The teacher takes on the form of an avatar on the computer screen, the person on the other end of a Skype conversation, the hundreds of “friends” that have been made through Facebook and MySpace.  Education is no longer contained within four walls.  It is uncontained.  Students can always access information and people in their network.  Until districts start to realize the potential of this big shift (i.e. taking down firewalls and blocked websites that are educationally valuable) students are mssing out in school.  We cannot expect them to learn like this on their own.  Our job is to teach effective practice using these tools.  We cannot if the means are not there.

Since I started reading and discussing the benefits of web 2.0, my views have not changed very much.  However, they have become more concrete.  I am a huge proponent for the internet and the realm of possibilities it provides.  I am now starting to have more “ammunition” to approach my higher-ups with to begin the conversation of opening up the web a bit more.