About Samuel Glass

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A Personal Commonplace

Welcome to my own private Idaho on the Interwebs. Originally, I created this website in 2006 as a commonplace book because I had trouble keeping up with all of the various bits of information that I was accumulating as a new teacher. Even now, a large part of my site continues to be a repository for my own personal notes and reference materials about teaching high school science.

A Demonstration Of Concepts

From there, the website evolved into a test platform for showcasing the various concepts behind the so-called Web 2.0 movement as described by Tim O’Reilly, where World Wide Web applications are used to facilitate collaboration between people, often with content created by the users themselves. Such applications include weblogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds, social networks, file-sharing programs, and the various mashups of those things.

Classroom 2.0

Then it occurred to me that the Web 2.0 philosophy about collaboration and information-sharing was very similar to the philosophies behind science and education. The Web 2.0 movement could be aligned with constructivist learning theory, where students with different sets of experiences discover concepts using their own terms, often by working together. In this context, the World Wide Web becomes a teaching tool for active learning and the teacher becomes a facilitator between the content and the students.

I find that such use of the World Wide Web to be right in line with how young people, for good or ill, acquire information and interact with each other on the Internet. Whether we like it or not, those of us who are in the teaching field need to adapt to the changing landscape of student technological culture.

Limits And Concerns

I have no problem drinking the Kool-Aid when it comes to talking about the major ideas behind Web 2.0, but I do feel that a heavy dollop of pragmatism needs to be added. I am aware that there is a lot of concern over the possible misuses of Web 2.0 social networking: impolite conduct, inappropriate content, and questionable practices. And these misuses can be performed by all parties concerned; how should we even act in a digital society?

Especially relevant to teachers are those circulating news stories that illustrate issues of privacy, censorship, and free expression. These stories often influence employment decisions, educational relationships, and even legal actions. In response, many school districts keep a tight leash on what actually can be accessed on school servers by both teachers and students.

For these concerns and other reasons, my personal website is not 100 percent Web 2.0-compliant (whatever that actually means) and it remains to be seen how successful my attempts will be in incorporating some of these applications into my own classroom.

Nonetheless, I feel that some Web 2.0 components, if properly facilitated, can serve useful educational functions in the twenty-first century classroom.