Digital Generation

I am very excited to be writing my first blog which actually marks my entry into the wonderful world of blogging. 

The recent rapid technological advancement has made many people stay out of 'the game' simply because they do not manage to catch up with it. The globalization and the technological 'revolutions' seem to be well presented in Thomas Friedman's book "The World is Flat". Unfortunately, I only managed to watch the video in which he presents his newly published book (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53vLQnuV9FY). Friedman argues that the world is becoming 'flatter' with globalization. Friedman roughly distinguishes between three eras of globalization. He conditionally calls the first era 'Globalization 1.0' that starts with the discovery of the New World by Columbus and ends at the beginning of the 19th century. He refers to this period as 'the globalization of countries'. The second era, referred to as Globalization 2.0, lasts until the year 2000. According to Friedman, this era marks the globalization of companies that are smaller unites than countries. Finally, he mentions the third actual era of globalization- Globalization 3.0. In this era flattening occurs on the level of individuals and groups. This is a distinction I had never thought of before. Though it is still difficult for me to find connections between the discovery of America and, say, the invention of the computer (maybe I need to read the book), I anyway agree that reaching the present level of technological advancement was a matter of a long period of time. 

Friedman mentions several 'flatteners' like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invention of the internet browser, the fiber optic cable, online encyclopedias where you can be an editor, etc. All these tools have facilitated data transmission, sharing of information transferring everything on the horizontal plane. We have many open sources that are available for free, from software to encyclopedia. I would even add here that sometimes we even suffer from excess of information, we get lost in it. 

It is really amazing how rapidly the advancement and online socialization take place. According to Friedman, success is reached only when all the flatteners work together. I completely agree with him. What would you do with your new software if nobody was aware of it or if nobody needed it? 

In order not to deviate from our topic, I would like to address the issue of application of technologies in learning. I would like to talk about this in the context of Digital Generation Project. I watched several videos about schoolchildren who have been raised in a media-rich networked world of infinite possibilities. I was struck by the technological knowledge that those children had obtained by individually exploring different tools. When provided the necessary tools, kids should be given the liberty of engaging themselves in different projects, assignments, teaching their own teachers. In this way, they automatically develop problem-solving, team-working skills. Seeing those smart kids, I realized that children in Armenian schools are such passive learners, 'enchained', deprived of possibility of exploring, creating, working in teams.This has both objective and subjective reasons. The objective reason is that Armenian schools mostly are not provided with the necessary equipment, the staff is not trained to provide the necessary guidance to the children. The subjective reason is that we have quite a conservative society in Armenia. Teachers are not motivated to learn more, to make changes in the curriculum. The school administration is also usually very skeptic about bringing innovations in the system. 

The main point in the videos is that you do not need a teacher ALL the time. And here I would like to draw parallels between "The World is Flat", "Digital Youth Portraits" and "The Hole in the Wall" project by Sugata Mitra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRb7_ffl2D0). Sugata Mitra makes several valuable points when presenting his project. One is that remoteness of the settlement may have a negative effect on the quality of education as teachers in remote areas are not motivated enough. Based on his project results, Mitra offers a solution- introducing educational technology into remote areas first. He argues that learning is a self-organizing system and children might only need educational technology in remote areas. This is where I agree only partly. Of course technology is of great help for self-learning. But does this mean that we should totally disregard the role of the teacher? I think things are not as simple as that. I am inclined to think that we may not need teachers in some cases but they should be there to direct the students' learning, give them some guidance and help. The Digital Youth Portrait videos that I watched are a mere illustration of this point. Here we should be able to find 'the golden mean'. 

I will take this into account in my future teaching career.