Barry Wareham
#1 ListServ’s and eGroups
WWWEDU - http://www.edwebproject.org/wwwedu.pr.html
Members: 1227 Founded: Oct. 9, 2001
WWWEDU is “a list dedicated to the use of the World Wide Web in education.” The WWWEDU list is moderated and is sponsored by Andy Carvin at the Benton Foundation.
The mission of the list is to offer educators and others an ongoing opportunity to participate in a discussion on “the potential of World-Wide-Web use in education.” Discussions are invited on current web use and practice in schools and libraries and about ways that the use of the web can be adapted for assessment, as well as instruction. The group actively works to bring non-Web using schools, and their representatives, into the discussion to debate and inform regarding web use and education. “Standard netiquette applies at all times, and flaming will not be tolerated.”
I was stunned by the level of expertise present in this very active group. The experience level and knowledge of those posting is truly impressive. Another thing which caught me off guard was the mixture of energy and optimism, in the discussions relevant to the implementation of technology in our schools, and it’s balance with realism, in regard to actually getting the “powers that be” to move sensibly and consistently in a new direction. They know it is an uphill battle against the entrenched, and sometimes closed minded, decision makers nationwide … yet they continue to work tirelessly toward the positive use and effective implementation of technology in education.
The most telling discussion centered around the lack of progress education has made since technology and media hardware has begun to show up in our classrooms, 20-30 years ago. It was stated that we now have a track record for technology and school improvement, and it is not very good. They then went on to a fasinating exchange about how we are still trying to fit the new technology into old 50 minute periods and a 100 year old format in the schools. This format was admittedly designed to serve the needs of society in the industrial period, and it did its job well. We should not be working to fit the technology to the 100 year old school framework, but rather attempting to adapt the school format to fit the future needs of the students and society.
Other discussions concerned Cyber field trips, an upcoming convention, summer training sessions being offered (online and off) and a very detailed discussion about Internet filtering in Schools and Libraries. I forwarded numerous posts to those in our schools who oversee this function.
This is truly a very intriguing group.
#2. RX-7 ListServ writeup