Pre assinment 6: Bill Rankin's Mobile Learning presentation

 Next Wave Mobility and the 3 Ages of Information

By Dr William Ranking

The presentation about the “Next-Wave Mobility and the 3 Ages of Information"  clearly presents the big steps in history basically regarding the access to information and the role of teachers in time. When watching the video my mind traveled automatically to my college years, when accessing information was a real challenge. I felt reflected in the Ranking`s explanation of the “Aha” moments when finally you reached a book in the library after a long process and then you realized the book was useless to your purposes…  And talking about “ages” I perceive my life as a college student more connected to the  first two ages of information than the third one. We were lectured, we had trouble accessing information, we spent “decades” to find a book, traveling to a historical archive to look for information, filling forms, copy-pasting by hand… But, my teachers were great, because despite the waste of time looking for information we had great discussions, they made us think, they taught us in how to make connections, in how to rely in the sources.

 This takes my to the second question and really makes me reflect on how the use of mobile devices can help our actual teaching. Mobile devices are a very powerful tool, a tool that  by sure will make a change in the way we perceive the world, a change of culture as Dr. Ranking presents. But technology is finally a tool. Having that immediate access to information represents a challenge for me it makes my reinforce my idea that I am not in front of a classroom to provide information to students, but to be their mentor, to help them make connections, have meaningful discussions, look for information between the lines. Today we can be more powerful teachers than the ones in the past because we can save time accessing information so that gives us more time for actually teaching our fellow student to better prepare them for their  challenging  future, to be more responsible, better thinkers and also good digital citizens. 

Teachers were very useful in the begging of times, they were useful in medieval times and they are and will be a priority in the years to come as long as we see ourselves not as providers of knowledge or as the truth holders, but as guides and mentors, and of course as trained and good digital citizens, always. As Dr. Ranking said, “…we need to teach not information, but informational models, so when information changes, people (students) still know how to apply the model”