Week2: Discussion Reflection

    I went through this week's discussion topics and here is what I thought about so far.

    First of all, I think Web 2.0 helps people learn, although I'm still not sure about social media's educational affordance. Good examples can be found in coding/programming topics. There are so many welcoming communities in that area full of people eager to share their knowledge about how to code or debug. You can easily get an essential piece of information to get through an obstacle you bumped into while programming, which will be very hard if you only try to solve it with published knowledge, such as books. Also, I'd like to note that lurking is definitely an act of learning, although it does not directly contribute to the community.

    Among the comments, Bobbi's comment reminded me of what I believed as a teacher. So, people say the younger generation is born with the Internet at the tip of their fingers, calling them 'digital natives'. Does that mean they won't need any more pens and paper? I don't think so. I still had my students write words in the correct form and color animals with colored pencils on a piece of paper in my classroom. And I will do so if I have my own child in the future. I believe writing and drawing on paper is one of the best ways to develop the micro muscles in your hand, which will enable you to easily learn other sophisticated skills. Knowing how much strength to exert when grabbing a pencil or how to control that strength when coloring a flower without messing up the sketch cannot be taught by the Internet. Humanity has developed with pen and paper for thousands of years and I don't think that biological, or physiological traits will change in decades. Do I sound too conservative? And I agree with Huong about the thin difference between understanding and stereotyping; there would be older people with more innovative thoughts out there.

    About networked individuals, I thought that the nature of what we do actually mediates how the concept of networked individuals explains the nature of learning. I am a Ph.D. student now and the concept perfectly explains my performance-related tasks. I feel like I am working from my Switchboard, where people can access through several channels and I can take my time before responding to them. But it won't explain the nature of what car mechanics, construction site workers, or public school teachers do as well as it explains what a Ph.D. student does. Some jobs are like parts of the whole, like gear. It can easily be replaced and allows little creativity. Of course, none of the existing theories can perfectly explain every phenomenon in the world; not even general science can. So I think it'll be worth delving into the characteristics of tasks or work environments that the concept of networked individuals can effectively explain.