The Human 'Education' Network

Last week I was watching our awesome TarHeel's play basketball and just about every other commercial break included a very thought provoking advertisement from Cisco about what they called "The Human Network."  In doing some research I realized that they have had this little campaign going on since the end of last year, but I spend more time blogging than I do watching TV (and it wasn't basketball season), so I missed it.  You can see the original commercial below and the newest commercial on Cisco's main page. 


The new commercial (not the one above) begins with somebody video taping a young man dancing in his kitchen.  It then pans to about about a half dozen places all over the world where others are watching him dance on all sorts of devices.  The commercial ends with just two sentences:
Welcome to a network where anyone can be famous.  Welcome to the Human Network.
Power of the Net

Both of these videos got me thinking about the power of the net.  This is obviously not a new thought, but it really brought home to me.  The internet has already changed our lives.  There is no denying that.  But it also is going to has changed the way we consume information.  Up until this point in our lives we have depended on someone else to filter what information we get.  We watch, listen to, and even read what people tell us is important.  I'm pretty sure the boy dancing would not have made it on the nightly news, or even the Gong show for that matter.  But today you can find hundreds, of not thousands of videos of kids dancing at home on the net and some even rise to superstar status like "Evolution of Dance" (over 40 million views when I last looked). 

Effects on Education

We are living in a world where everyone can become famous.  As I poked around Cisco's site a little more I found their home page for the Human Network.  On this page if you click on the left hand side under "Human Network Multimedia" you can find some Podcast's.  The second one down is called "Changing Education: Beyond the Classroom."  The podcast is about 10 minutes long but it talks about some new (Virtual Field Trips) and some not so new (Smart Classrooms) uses of the net in education.  I recommend it to those who have the time.

A teacher was asked how the internet was improving Education overall and she said:
For social studies it is making education real time.  Students can access databases, they can access newspapers, and access real-time information, so it's what happened today, it's what happened an hour ago.  They're not depending on a textbook anymore.

Many of these kids are interacting with scientists and historians online, so it's bringing the experts into the classroom.
So What Now?

There has been a discussion forming recently on the blogosphere about where the future is going to take us in education with the net and the absolute need for some sort of educational reform in response to this change.  Bloggers Will Richardson, Christopher Sessums, and Steve Hargadon recently wrote about the need to engage the political scene to make a change.

Politicians have always played a huge roll in educational reform.  But bloggers have started playing a large role  politics, albeit not so much in education so far.  But is there something we could do? 

I think at this point the biggest thing we need to do is recognize the change.  Information and the way we get information has changed, but not forever is people are allowed to mediate the content again.  Ideas like "Net Neutrality" could remove that ability forever. 

I don't want to turn this entry, or this blog into a political blog, but I think we need to recognize the change.  There is so much potential in the web and using it as a platform for learning.  Education is about information, education is about collaboration, education is about communication, and there is nothing that makes it easier, current, relevant and prevelent than the internet.  As educators, we should embrace this change and use it to learn, grow and teach better.

Comments?  Thoughts?  Solutions?

So I am ending this blog entry with a plea for comments. 

• What do you think about the web as an educational platform? 
  
• Do you agree with my assessment of the way education has changed?
• What about the political change?  If you agree... how do we contribute?
• What other thoughts did you have while you read this?

I would love to hear your thoughts!


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