Post Number 6

I'm not entirely convinced that using Web 2.0 technologies in K-12 education is the best idea. In the elemenatary levels, it exposes children to the world of social networking too early and they will want to spend all of their time on the computer, not to mention that they aren't fully aware of all the internet danger that lurks out there and how to protect themselves against scams and the such. If I were to Web 2.0 technologies, I would use it at the high school level, where students are already exposed to that world and generally know the rules, such as not giving out personal information over the internet. I would use it in low quantities though, so as not to base my entire teaching on web-based technology.

Wikipedia can be useful for looking up general information, but I don't think it should be used as a source in research papers or projects. Wikipedia is open for anyone to edit or add things, unless the page of information is locked, which is very rare. Some of the information found on wikipedia is the correct information, but unless the page is locked, you never know if you are looking at the right information or not. Until the pages are full of information given by scholars and scholars only, and locked, I don't think that wikipedia is a good, trusted learning source.

I've had teachers who put lots of information on PowerPoint slides, so I think learning how to put only the key points, without elaboration, on the slides was useful. Also, learning the do's and don'ts of PowerPoint was helpful because I realize that I have made presentations with many items falling into the don't category. I believe that in this day in age, knowing how to give an effective presentation without losing interest is very important, and PowerPoint is one way of doing this because of its various themes and designs to choose from and multiple animations for slides, texts, and pictures.