The Educator's Guide to the Read/Write Web -- Will Richardson

You don't have to be very old to be able to say, "I was there when the web first came along."  There are different definitions of when "the web" first sprang into being, but the first widespread graphical web browser, Netscape 1.0 came out in 1995.  For me, that's when "the web" really started.  And that was less than 15 years ago.  In that time, we've come to expect our computers to become twice as fast every year or so.  We've come to expect cell phones to shrink in size and explode in functionality.  We've come to accept technology in just about every aspect of our lives (honestly, digital toilets?--you bet! and if you're honest with yourself, you're not even surprised...)  But what about the web itself?  Has it changed in the last 13 years?  Oh yes it has.  As Will Richardson clearly points out in his article, "The Educator's Guide to the Read/Write Web," the web has gone from a read-only source of information to a wide open canvas on which ideas and content are painted everyday by people all over the world.  More relevantly, students are using the emerging two-way nature of the web more than ever and Mr. Richardson hones in on some of the effects this has on teachers.

New tools that have turned the World Wide Web into the Read/Write Web:

• Blogs--like the one you're reading now.  Allow people to publish to the web with almost a single mouse click.
• Wikis.  Allow web users to collaborate in the creation of online references.
• RSS.  Really Simple Syndication.  With this snazzy software, users can collect new information off the web automatically--without having to actively go searching for it.
• Social Bookmarking sites.  Now web surfers can save and share webpages.  When like-minded surfers  start getting together (hence the social bookmarking moniker), the amount of relevant information to be found can be impressive.
• Podcasting.  The web isn't just text anymore.  Now users create their own audio/video programs and publish it to the web.  All available anytime, anywhere.

What all this means to Educators:

• Literacy doesn't just mean being able to read anymore.  To be literate in today's society, a student must know how to edit, collaborate, and publish on the web.  This is the new way ideas are exchanged.
• Audience.  Students used to create papers for their teachers to grade (judge).  Now students create content that is potentially available to the world.   
• Guidance.  Teachers cannot match the wealth of information available on the web.  But they can, and must, be effective guides to teach their students how to navigate.
• Reflection.  Combining the storage capabilities of the web, along with its emerging easy-use publishing portals, it is possible for students to maintain a "portfolio" throughout their education.  This makes "metacognitive reflection" (Mr. Richardson's term) possible for students.  What a difference this could make in education.

Prior to reading this article, I knew, in a yeah-someday sort of way, that I would need to get my students up and running on publishing to the web.  My particular school is situated such that their exposure to the web, for the most part, has been somewhat limited.  However, Mr. Richardson's point about "metacognitive reflection" is an eye-opening idea.  If the students are creating their own content, keeping their own content, managing their own content--year after year--the reflection that is inevitably going to occur will be fantastically valuable.  How often do educators struggle at the beginning of the year to "refresh" kids?  What if instead, the first day of school was spent going over a student's blog/rss/podcast/furl content from the year before?  Imagine the collection of information a student would have by the time they graduated.  This idea, more than anything else in the article, inflames my imagination.