Michael Wesch is a Cultural Anthropology instructor at Kansas State University who has been very involved with exploring how the Internet and new media are changing information and our relationship to it and how education needs to change to reflect those changes. His YouTube videos on the subject have been viewed nearly 10 million times. In this lecture at the University of Manitoba, he explains some of his thoughts about the Internet and the future of education.
It’s well worth watching if you have the time. Here’s the link:
Lecture: Michael Wesch and the Future of Education
In our online learning discussion on 5/23/08, one of the comments that was made was that students seem very comfortable using the technology for socializing and entertainment, but don’t seem to want to use it for more academically rigorous activities. At about the 25 minute mark of the lecture, Michael makes some great points discussing this issue and explains that student’s do not have these skills and that it is the instructor’s role to teach them how to do it.