網絡學習造就了網絡老師
 

網絡文化主要是大多數年輕人組成的的大集體，這是因為網絡的突起是新的，十五年前很少人會在家上網，伴隨著電腦長大的孩子們更多得是用它作為學習和交流的工具。他們可以選擇不用手寫字，總是用郵件代替打電話，沒有電腦伴隨長大的孩子就沒有這種條件。那個時候他們必須用手寫，他們必須用手機。所以現在很多的孩子都是通過網絡來學習和交流。他們是網絡文化的核心，他們被稱為網絡兒童。

如今的網絡兒童讀和寫都不一樣。喬治蘭登在他的文章里說道：“二十分鐘穿越未來，我們怎樣才能超越書本上呢”并說道：“這些新的數據，信息技術在我們讀和寫的方式上涉及到了基本的改變，這些根本的不同，相反，來自一個單一的事實，從物理到虛擬，蘭登所說的基本的變化還需要得到公認，網絡兒童他們需要得到老師的理解，網絡兒童教學不回應的方式在網絡之前就已經出現了”。
 

Cyber-Learning To Make Cyber-Teachers 

 

Cyber-culture is a large group of people the majority of which are young. This is because the internet's prominence is new. Fifteen years ago very few people were on-line at home. Children who have grown up with the Internet are more likely to use it as a tool for learning and communicating; they had the choice of not writing by hand, of always emailing instead of phoning. People who grew up without the Internet did not have that choice; there was a time when they had to write by hand, when they had to use the phone. So there are many children who have always learned and communicated with the Internet; they are the core of cyber-culture, they are the cyber-children. 

 

The cyber-children of today read and write differently. George Landow, in his essay “Twenty Minutes into the future, or How Are We Moving Beyond the Book”, said, “These new digital information technologies involve fundamental changes in the way we read and write, and these radical differences, in turn, derive from a single fact, the physical to the virtual” (219). The fundamental changes that Landow is talking about need to be recognized; they need to be understood by the teachers that cyber-children have. Cyber-children are not going to respond to ways of teaching that were designed before the Internet. And since most of the teachers today finished school and got their degrees and teaching certificates before the Internet’s present prominence, there is a problem. Teachers need to use methods of teaching reading and writing that reciprocate the needs of cyber-children. 

 

There is a problem with the ways in which teachers teach these children who are the core of cyber-culture. Much of the problem stems from how the students learned to read and write as it differs from how the teachers learned. Cyber-children have learned to read on-line, their teachers learned with print. James Sosnoski, in his essay “Hyper-readers and Their Reading Engines”, points out differences between reading printed text and reading what he calls hypertext. He says that readers of hypertext use, “ . . . filtering: a higher degree of selectivity in reading” (402). So cyber-children are geared toward the bigger picture, and they leave out details. Their teachers, by learning to read with print, accumulated details along with the big picture; they would expect their cyber-students to see details being as important as the big picture. For instance, a test written by a teacher would ask for the climax of a short story, and then ask the age of the character involved in that climax. The cyber-student didn’t pay attention to the age of the character and will miss that question. Teachers should not consider things like dates and names to be worth as much as things like main ideas and conclusions; if they do, the cyber-student is not likely to succeed. However, some would say that all the teacher really needs to do in this case is make sure their students learn different methods of extracting what could be important from a texr. But Sosnoski also says that readers of hypertext use “ . . . skimming: less text actually read’ (402). Teachers who did not learn to read on-line will assign their cyber-students whole chapters at a time, and tell them to read it in full. The cyber-student then tries to read the chapter in full word for word and she has a hard time. She is not wired for this type of reading and so she misses the main idea and the details, she wastes her time. The teacher should explain that it is o.k. to read in a way that is comfortable. However, the most important thing Sosnoski put in this essay is, “ . . . pecking: a less linear sequencing of passages read” (402). This means that cyber-students have, by learning on-line, created ways of sequencing that work for them. #p#分頁標題#e#

 

The teacher who lectures and tests on a chapter linearly does a disservice to their cyber-students. The teacher needs to lecture in a variety of ways, discuss the chapter from the middle to the end to the beginning sometimes, and sometimes discuss the chapter from the end to the middle to the beginning; just so that the lessons are not always linear. The Internet is a circular existence, and cyber-children have developed circular ways of reading and learning because of it. 

 

There is also a problem with the present methods of teaching writing. And again, the past is the key to the cause of this problem. Cyber-students have learned to write on-line; their teachers learned from print. The print even taught them how to teach writing, but it taught them how to teach students to write in a print manner, an ineffective manner for cyberstudents. Teachers have to teach writing in new ways that are effective for their cyber-students. George Landow points out that, “Digital textuality also permits far greater ease of manipulatibility and reconfigurability” (221). So teachers who don’t recognize that their cyber-students have mastered manipulation and reconfiguration will assign things like outlines or webs as prewriting requirements. The cyber-student finds this a waste of time because he writes what he needs to write and goes back to change it; his ideas develop as he writes, not before. Change happens very fast, immediately. Landow says that digital textuality, “ . . . permit(s) the appearance of entire texts to be reconfigured rapidly” (221). So it’s not just minor details that can be fixed instantly, the whole thing can become something else in the blink of an eye. The cyber-student, unlike the teacher who learned from print, doesn’t see anything as set in stone. The teacher needs to teach the cyber-student effective ways to change what she has written; the teacher shouldn’t try to instruct the cyber-student to have everything figured out before the writing has even begun. The writing should happen fast, and it should be more than words. 

 

Cyber-students have the potential to surpass the old black and white, word on paper way of writing; teachers must nurture this potential. It’s not that the potential will die, but it is as Bob Dylan said generations ago: 

Your old road is 

Rapidly agin’ 

Please get out of the new one 

If you can’t lend your hand 

For the times they are a-changin’. (111) 

 

The change is happening, so help it to come in smooth. Mithell Stephens, in his essay “Complex Seeing: A New Form”, talks about this change. He describes how communication will go from what it has been, which is that way of words, to something he calls the “new video” (437). He says of it, “Its performances–with their hordes of objectified scenes, illuminated by words, graphics and symbols–provide endless opportunities for commentary upon themselves” (440). He is talking about a form of communication that comes as a result from children being raised on-line. Today’s cyber-students are the ones who are going to perfect this new way of writing, this video communication. Teachers can help their students with the new writing by supporting them instead of fighting them. The teachers should not assign five page, or 800 word essays; they should assign web sites enhanced with graphics and symbols, with enough text. Writing will take place on-line with the use of computers and new technology. Learning and mastering what is new in the world of technology will become the challenge and goal of cyber-students with cyber-teachers. So assignments may be rough and experimental at first. The cyber-students are going to end up being a part of what Stephens calls the “new video” whether it turns out to be as he describes it or not. Landow says that, “Digitizing text permits one to reproduce, manipulate, and reconfigure it with great ease and rapidity” (221). So if things are going digital they are getting there fast, and the old ways might not even be recognized. #p#分頁標題#e#

 

Cyber-culture is creating the new ways to read and write; cyber-students are the largest and fastest growing members of cyber-culture; teachers have the job of finding new ways to teach these students. Teachers could go on and teach the way they have been, but it won’t be effective anymore. Sven Berkerts says, “And what will happen when educators find that not very many of the old materials will “play”-that is, capture student enthusiasm?” (68), a question worth asking if you care about the future. The future is in the hands of our cyber-students, they are not going to revert to ways of reading and writing that they didn’t even grow up with just because that’s how their teachers are used to it. However, as time goes on these cyber-students will become cyber-teachers and the shift will have taken place. But the shift that the Internet started could be made very painful for children if teachers ignore it. If teachers choose to pretend that the Internet is not really doing anything to change their old ways of learning and communicating, they can go ahead and be crushed by the worldwide juggernaut. Technology cannot be stopped, it can only be held at bay for a short period prior to the annihilation of its barriers. 

 

Works Cited 

 

Berkerts, Sven. “Into the Electronic Millennium”. Writing Material: Readings from Plato 

to The Digital Age. New York: Longman, 2003. 

 

Dylan, Bob. “The Times They are A-Changin’”. Bob Dylan: The Very Best. New York: 

Amsco, 1993. 

 

Landow, George. “Twenty Minutes Into The Future, or How are We Moving Beyond The 

Book”. Writing Material: Readings From Plato to The Digital Age. New York: 

Longman, 2003. 

 

Sosnoski, James. “Hyper-Readers and Their Reading Engines”. Writing Material: 

Readings From Plato to The Digital Age. New York: Longman, 2003. 

 

Stephens, Mitchell. “Complex Seeing: A New Form”. Writing Material: Readings From 

Plato to The Digital Age. New York: Longman, 2003. 

 

Tribble, Evelyn B., and Anne Trubek, ed. Writing Material: Readings From Plato to The 

Digital Age. New York: Longman, 2003.