Tim O'Reilly, who's media company coined Web 2.0, says it's not a version number. So, basically we need to stop referring to the dramatic evolutionary rise of the web in education as web 3.0.
In an interview, EdTech asked: What changes do you see that are most likely to affect education?
O'Reilly: "The first is the rise of video as a learning medium — Stanford University's artificial intelligence classes, for example, or Khan Academy".
He thinks that another change the web will bring is to drive down the cost of higher education.
Karen Cator predicts that students will become more engaged in their learning and that teachers [who work with librarians] will be able to develop more interesting and complex assighments supported by more resources [with knowledgeable librarians].
I added my own librarian take to Cator's comments because teachers will need support to make this shift happen. As assignments grow more complex, use of substantive resources also needs to grow more complex. This means that librarians need to help shape assignments so that the use of scholarly articles and primary sources are included as requirements.
When O'Reilly speaks to the rise of video in education, we have to remember that many schools still block media channels such as YouTube.
Another thing we need to reflect on are the findings of the 2012 Pew Survey: How Teens Do Research in the Digital World.
Some key findings:
In descending order, the sources teachers in our survey say students are “very likely” to use in a typical research assignment:
- Google or other online search engine (94%)
- Wikipedia or other online encyclopedia (75%)
- YouTube or other social media sites (52%)
- Their peers (42%)
- Spark Notes, Cliff Notes, or other study guides (41%)
- News sites of major news organizations (25%)
- Print or electronic textbooks (18%)
- Online databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR, or Grolier (17%)
- A research librarian at their school or public library (16%)
- Printed books other than textbooks (12%)
- Student-oriented search engines such as Sweet Search (10%
My question is this: Where are all the librarians hiding?
