To Infinity and Beyond: Courtesy of Buzz Lightyear and Friends

Will it ever stop? Will the world of technology and it's capabilities with regards to communication ever implode or peter out? Likely not, and more likely, Web 5.0 tools and their applications will be emerging another generation or two down the road.
For me personally, trying to gain a stance, rickety as it is, with Web 2.0 tools has been a challenge. I'm old. And being old has it's own challenges, never mind introducing new-fangled gadgets with which to share learning, gain knowledge, talk to friends and store my pictures. I like books. I like the way they feel in my hand, the smell of the paper and how I can flip through the different sections to find the information I need. I like face to face contact. I like being able to read the expression on my friend's face when I pass on some exciting news. I like sitting next to my co-worker as we pour over an assignment to give our students. And I store my pictures in hard cover albums where I can look at them while sitting in my favorite, super comfy chair. I have no need to keep informed on the current status of all my friends. I don't really care to log in to a social network to find out that they may be tired from a long day at work. I already know that because I know my friends, what they do for a living and that they're usually tired from working anyway. And I know this because we get together a few times a month and really share some great conversation - face to face.
However . . .
. . . I have learned, and learned big, throughout these past three months and I can really see how what I have learned can be applied to schools, teaching and learning. I have collaborated on three different wikis. One was with a partner to create a wiki assignment and once we'd completed it, my partner and I agreed we had to share it with all the other librarians in our district because it was too valuable to let go as just an assignment. Socially constructing information took on new meaning to me when I realized that my partner and I were both sitting at our computers with big latttes on our desktops - actual desktops, not virtual desktops. I'm blogging right now. I listened to podcasts, watched videos, mostly on Youtube, embedded some videos onto my blog, accessed my e-learning course, a mashup, from more than one location, and have become a big fan of open source access, all as a means to build information. These are cool media, according to Trier, and I have, indeed, enjoyed a high rate of participation.
And now that I've become an expert (in my own mind), I can see how many of these tools can be used in the school setting. In the future, teachers may not be needed so much as a conduit of content so much as a facilitator, teaching students how to use the tools in order to build their own information. Students will be wired to others around the world, sharing, assimilating and synthesizing information to make it their own and spit it out as new. As educators, we'll need to learn how to evaluate their learning. Has the information been plagerized? Do we need to rewrite the rules on plagerism?
I'm definitly not in a rut in my job. I can begin to teach my students blogging and wiki programs and have them work together to complete assignments using these tools. I can teach them how to use tags to search for videos on a specific topic so they can construct new meaning. Learning about, and having the opportunity to use some of the Web 2.0 tools, has blown my teaching ability wide open and I look forward to the chance to share this knowledge with my students.
Web 3.0, I might not be ready for you just yet, but the future is coming faster than ever, and you won't be leaving me and my students behind if I have anything to say about it. Age is only a number and this old gal refuses to sit in her rocker unless there's a fully equipped and fully wired laptop on her knees with which to teach.