So I have been up to my elbows in group projects and papers lately, and therefore snoozing in the blogosphere. The one thing I am feeling is that due to other time committments such as work and school, and the fact that there are just not enough hours in a day, blogging has become one of those things on my ‘to-do’ list that just hasen’t gotten done. I have had an article sitting on my desk waiting to be read and blogged about for almost 2 weeks now. I am actually having to force myself to take the time to read and comment on it, otherwise it is just not going to get done. I have always been a talker, and always seem to have something to say, but when you talk in real life you don’t necessarily have to make time for it, it just happens, whereas in the virtual world of the web, when talking and creating discussion you really do have to consciously make time.

So I was given a magazine recently, put out by the Globe & Mail called “Canadian University Report”. In it post-secondary institutions and trends are discussed. An article in the magazine titled “Classroom 3.0” caught my eye.

What really interested me in this article, is the fact that those students they are talking about…that’s me. I began my first year of university around the time of the birth of Web 2.0 and the time social networking, social bookmarking, and blogging sites, such as Facebook Delicious and Twitter were first being introduced. I went to the first university that aimed to use technology as a primary teaching tool.

The article discusses the “bag full of tech gear” students come to school with (I never left residence without my ipod, phone, or laptop), and a life shaped by the internet (if the article wasn’t in a full-text database it likely wouldn’t have been seen by me…), and the fact that “universities have to adopt the latest technologies in order to fit an education with the new generation’s life and learning style”. Well, I am that new generation, and I have to say, my educational institutions have done a fairly good job of meeting this new ‘learning style’ of mine.

My primary contact method as a student is by email, which I have access to all the time via my phone and computer. My assignments can be turned in digitally or by paper. I can download notes, discussions, class readings, and my research all online. I can receive school updates through my RSS feed and send them to my iGoogle. I think universities are adapting to students, they are providing them with new ways of learning that fit with the tasks they do everyday. Universities are still doing what they sought out to do, which is to help students learn and take what they have learned and apply it to the world when they leave school. Universities bringing in technology, introducing social media and web 2.0 tools, and incorporating these into the way lessons are taught, and the way students participate, is how they will continue to grow, develop, and remain relevant to current and future learners. As Web 3.0 looms closer and closer, universities need to start thinking now, and introducing concepts today, in order to be able to adapt to the students entering the Classroom 3.0 that is bound to develop.