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 Technology News | June 2005 
Online Course Maximizes Web Experience
 Barbara Kastelein - The Herald Mexico
Most of us use our internet connection for more than just sending emails, whether it be to check the price of flights or to google netspeak for "search" using the www.google.com search engine (the transitive verb "to Google" has been used for years now by those who do it) old friends. Many use it for much more, for work, for research, reference and fact checking, for medical advice, banking and investments, for chats and dates, or for plain old "surfing."
However, many of us have not had a single class, let alone a course in online studies on how to use the web or how to maximize one's use of the internet in general. What was jargon some years ago has become common parlance and snuck its way into the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster. Some are even surprised to realize their elderly parents are not left behind in the age of the internet and have their own email addresses and favorite websites.
There is much to be said for learning things the hard way when it comes to computers in general. Though it seems that making all these discoveries on one's own, through trial and error, often results in a loss of valuable time when one considers that there are other options. There is a lot out there in the online world that many wish someone had told them about first for example: junk mail and spam, viruses and spyware, ineffective search engines that end up more scam than useful resource and the seemingly endless, tacky, often smut-filled pop-up windows only one ill-chosen click away.
Many become disheartened with the overwhelming amount of junk online, despite the internet's many benefits. The thought of having to wade through more garbage, and expose oneself to more eyestrain and headaches along with the anti-social effect of spending hours online, tends to discourage many from ever being more than a novice.
While it is fortunate that electronics wizards are pioneering some new time-saving tools (both hardware and software) for surfing the web more efficiently, those of us who do not keep up and suffer from mild but chronic net aversion, end up propagating our own isolation and inefficiency when we could be improving the quality of our life.
"Mastering The Web" (MTW) an online education course from Oaxaca-based Planeta.com plucks the most recalcitrant internet user from the plodding comfort of his or her old ways and opens up not only a whole new world of internet use but also a philosophy of learning (look first at: www.planeta.com/web/improving.html).
The fact that the course is done over the internet means you can do it with your colleagues or work team in your office, or if you prefer, take it in the comforts of your own home.
It is not an isolated experience, as you send feedback to your tutor who emails you in return and follows up with comments, suggestions and help. Nor is it unstructured. You have to book when you plan to take the course, which lasts for a 5-day week with "at least" an hour a day but as most students have found, anything up to five hours a day is required to make the very best out of the material.
Created for Planeta.com, with ongoing feedback and modifications, by Ron Mader, the founder of the award-winning website, the course appeals to all ages and for many people is a life-changing experience, especially while they are taking the course. Anyone who completes the MTW course leaves with the tools to conduct pristine research, set up their own website, engage in responsible, courteous and mutually beneficial relationships with other web users (masters of "netiquette"). The course also brings enhanced critical awareness, both of the users' own habits and prejudices, and of materials and virtual entities they come into contact with.
There is basic reading, as well as suggested reading and assignments. You also get to take advantage of the Planeta.com site, which is updated on a weekly basis and provides free access to more than 10,000 pages of articles and resource guides for students, travelers and policy-makers. A good deal of self-organization and discipline is required and this in itself becomes one of the things good, tidy habits you learn.
In addition, Mader's hard work and dedication to certain non-hierarchical forms of learning and personal responsibility, as well as team building, shows how criticism and appreciation can go hand in hand, and eases the student into improved lateral thinking with the long term benefit that you get more not only out of the web, but out of life. The feel-good factor is high, with much encouragement and a careful cultivation of positive thinking. Students feel enabled from the beginning.
In the first lesson, students are asked to begin with some introspection taking stock of our perception of the world. Then as the class begins to look at the Web, we are introduced to a curious tool, the "Wayback machine" that allows you to review certain websites when they first started to see how they evolve over time.
The Day 1 reading takes you to an essay by Mader on communities and tourism one of his fields of expertise but also on the benefits and dilemmas of the web ("It brings people together by virtue of their affinity, rather than their vicinity," but it also tempts those who are wired to "distance ourselves from where we live.")
The lesson recommends the student to read "Silicon Snake Oil : Second Thoughts on the Information Highway," one of many valuable books and resources students learn about in the course of MTW.
Day 2 has a concrete focus on the website that you would like to have, teaching you to be practical, list your short- and long-term needs, as well as be creative and look at sites and blogs. I'll sheepishly admit this was a new term to me. Short for "web logs," it means web sites that contain an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks (or simply "links") to other web pages. In the blog we see there are tips for wannabe authors, lists of publishers, and another ingenious web tool, called "Copyscape" to detect plagiarism of your content elsewhere on the web.
It is possible that Day 2 reading, with a focus on "Open Space Technology" by Harrison Owen, may be a little "new age" or flimflam for some readers' taste, talking about peacemaking and the life aim of creating the conditions for peace. However, the focus is on methodologies and attitudes, thinking and working long term, and is another ingredient in Mader's ingenious package for helping students get out of an intellectual and attitudinal rut.
Day 3 focuses on search engines, and the "Dark Web" reminding us to be critical of material that masquerades as information and discussing how to authenticate what you're looking at. The reading here also helps students to see tools as cogs in much larger wheels of development of human quest for knowledge and has some enjoyable discussions about semantics.
MTW is not all perfect, but since it's completely interactive and you are asked to engage in debate over the content, presentation and other aspects of the course you have the opportunity to give your tutor criticism. The willingness the tutor has to change something if he agrees with your criticism is gratifying, and there is always a (never patronizing) explanation given when the tutor decides not to alter something in light of your criticism.
It is one of the few, perhaps the only, courses I have ever taken that treats the student with respect as a thinking adult who has as much to give and share and teach as the teacher. In this way it is actually a very good course for teachers to take as a direct experience of a positive and creative teaching methodology.
sirio@data.net.mx |
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