My Learning Space

The community of Webware.com users recently voted for its favorite Web applications. The Top 100 Web apps, 10 in each of 10 categories, determined by Webware readers and the fans of the sites made the final cut.

There were more than 5,000 nominations for sites to be included in this awards program, which Webware’s editors pruned to a list of 250 finalists. Users then voted on those finalists. There were 489,467 votes cast.

Click here to view The Top 100 Webware sites for 2007

Do you agree with the Top 100 list? Are there any surprise inclusions or omissions from the respective categories? Ok, now here’s an interesting spin…if you could choose the Top 10 Best Apps for Education (from the Top 100 list), what would be your recommendations be & why?

Social constructivist theory asserts that we learn well from the act of creating or expressing something for others.  Over time, a social group constructs knowledge artefacts for one another and establishes a culture of shared meaning. Similarly, teaching and learning become more effective by understanding context. The proliferation of social networking sites such as My Space, Facebook and Ning demonstrate the potential of communication and collaboration tools in the context of education.

My Learning Space has launched its free Social Network courtesy of the team at Ning. Join our global community of educators. Exchange ideas about innovative teaching in blogs and forums, share audio, photo, video resources and work together by creating your own groups on the network.

Click here to access our Social Network. Please note that you are required to register on the network using a valid email account.

The ‘mass production line’ is a great analogy to describe the traditional school system. Students as the raw material and educators as the cogs in the machine working for a bureaucracy. For too long, many schools and universities have operated like this: farms and factories that produce clones of a pre-determined specification, fit for society.

It is refreshing to consider an educational system that is not bound by four walls. Learning can happen about anything, anywhere and anytime. On the same token, our learners must become the producers, not simply institutionalised consumers of knowledge. I believe, that we as educators, must facilitate opportunities for our learners to connect, communicate and collaborate to extend their cognitive potential, virtually speaking. Technology is the perfect catalyst to realise this potential.

Will we ever deconstruct the traditional role of schools and universities as physical entities, bound by systems, structures and controlling mechanisms?