Sean Sharp’s ITRT Blog

Welcome to a worldwide learning network — OER Commons

This looks pretty cool. Open Lesson Plans . . .

Nice!

THE MORE TIME PEOPLE SPEND USING THE INTERNET

THE INTERNET STUDY: More DetailWhat do users do on the Internet? Click images for larger view

We asked each of our 4000 respondents to select among a list of 17 common internet activities and tell us which they did or did not do. This is what we found:

E-mail is by far the most common Internet activity, with 90% of all Internet users claiming to be e-mailers. Note: the corresponding table has been updated from the previous version of the press release

For the most part, the Internet today is a giant public library with a decidedly commercial tilt. The most widespread use of the internet today is as an information search utility for products, travel, hobbies, and general information. Virtually all users interviewed responded that they engaged in one or more of these information gathering activities.

A little over a third of all Internet users report using the web to engage in entertainment such as computer games such as online chess, role games, and the like. Thus, the current Internet is also emerging as an entertainment utility.

Chat rooms are for the young and the anonymous. While a quarter of internet users claim to have used chat rooms, this activity substantially decreases after age 25. And the chatters report that the overwhelming portion of their chat room interaction is with anonymous others whose identities remain unknown.

Consumer to Business transactional activity– purchasing, stock trading, online auctions, and e-banking–are engaged in by much smaller fractions of Internet users, with only a quarter reporting they make purchases online and under fifteen percent doing any of the other transactional activities. Despite all of the sound and fury, business to consumer commercial online transactions are but in their earliest stages.

This article is very interesting. The part that struck me was the social interaction piece. How much time have we lost to socializing with others because we use the Internet so much? Or is it that we could be doing something other than the Internet and the same thing would happen? How much time do we spend socializing on the Internet, too? Good questions and some good perspective to ponder.

apophenia

I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with conversations about cyberbullying. I fear that by emphasizing cyber the term clouds whats really going on. Dont get me wrong – the internet, like all technologies before it, has altered the dynamics of bullying, but why didnt my generation of telebullying? Three-way calling allowed people to bully from home with others virtually present for the attacks. Of course, i know the answer to that… bullying over the internet is not just a technological advance of bullying, but an advance that makes the attacks visible to adults.

This is where our energies should really be going–not on Dateline sexual predator issues. Cyberbullying is a larger problem but the emphasis seems to be on how “bad” the Internet is for teens.

Simulation Nation

Good Article here (link above):

Articles in the media on the use of some particular technology in schools are generally pretty formulaic.Typically, they begin with a glowing quote from a teacher, who bubbles, “I use [insert technology] with my classes, and its the greatest thing since sliced pasta.”Then they throw in a few case studies, ideally from different parts of the world and various types of schools say, urban and rural for the requisite diversity. Toss in a few more highly enthusiastic instructors and a ringing endorsement from a student, and — boom — youre home free. “I should look into that,” thinks you, dear reader.

If thats the kind of article you are looking for, keep looking, because this article on computer-simulation technology is, rather, about how and why yet another technology that could be enormously powerful for our kids learning is getting short shrift in our educational system — despite the successes we can, in fact, find and cite. Simulation is not just another in the long line of passing fads or short-term opportunities in educational technology. It is, rather, a real key to helping our students understand the world.