Task # 2 - Assignment # 2

• " More than ever, we can all now be producers, not just consumers." (p.95 - Freidman)

This is what I preceived to be one of the most valuable pieces of information in this section of the text. Before we go into a classroom and teach students, we ourselves need to be familiar with the technology and what we can actually learn from it. To me, this quote says an enormous amount. Teachers need to explore blogging and wiki and podcasts so that not only they can learn but they can see what their students will learn.

Every single one of us now has the ability to produce, share, and extend our thoughts, our work, and our opinions with people all over the world. To an extent, I don't think that most of us realize how amazing this is and I don't think alot of us take advantage of this 24/7 opportunity.

This #4 flattener opened my eyes to how much is on the internet and how much more I should be exploring it. I think the most important thing to do before we can even answer "what should ELA teachers be teaching our students" is to teach ourselves. Once we accomplish that task, we can successfully go into a classroom, demonstrate how to use blogs, wiki's, podcasts (etc) and then students will be exposed to a whole new world of how to learn.

• I was dumbfounded by this fact : "A new blog is created every 7 seconds. There are more then 24 million blogs already and the number is growing at about seventy thousand a day." (p.119) Can you even begin to imagine how many of that number are students exploring this amazing new world?