Critical Thinking in Review

Abstract:   
When I think about college classes I have taken in past years, Critical Thinking Psy700 is perhaps the most thought provoking. In six weeks, I have realized that many assumptions about the process of knowledge acquisition have been taken for granted, as well as the context of that knowledge. In the age of new media, old notions of knowledge and meaning must be re-examined.

Treatment:
Media is alive now . The World Wide Web no longer behaves in the form it originally was. (Darcy Dinucci 1999) might have explained it best in, “Fragmented Future”, “The web is not a static page viewed in a browser; it is rich, provoking, attention grabbing, and it approaches the threshold of thinking like you.” The web is a not just screen of text and graphics, but a fluid mechanism by which interactivity happens. It may be on your computer, television, car dashboard, cell phone, or other devices but interaction will happen.

This is now the Web 2.0. Media can now engage and forces us to think about issues that face the world, in immediacy never thought possible. New media can orchestrate the overthrowing of a government, by those who feel no one has listened to their needs. Using Facebook, the young unemployed population of Egypt showed the world the power of new media. In less than two weeks, they changed the course of history forever.

The use of new media has not only changed the rulers of nations, but the economics as well. The value chains of the past focused on the machines. New media will change that forever (Skirky 2008), Skirky asserts that the future uses of media will focus on three major activities: 1. information, 2. coordination, and 3. collaboration. Solving the problems of tomorrow is about collaboration. In the past, planners and solution providers alike have always focused on the mere nature of information being open and accessible, but underestimated the power of the collective.

Education is a passion for me. A teacher, an educator, which ever label best applies that is what I hope to continue to be. It is with much passion I must assert the experience in Critical Thinking Psy700, has created re invigoration to engage students on the subject. Educators and administrators need to reassess the role of critical thinking in the education process. In education, critical thinking is essential for productive learning. Through the sharing methods of new media tools found in the Web 2.0, students would experience new reams of awareness. (Will Richardson 2009) applies a new label to the term Web 2.O., it is the “read/ write web.” Will asserts that instructors must embrace the new media tools of the read/ write web. These tools are about collaboration; in this new keys to knowledge can be discovered.

Students who spend hours on Facebook and MySpace have begun to create their own language, coining their own idioms thus redefining their lives. It is in this process they may have begun the infancy of Richardson's Personal Learning Networks. The notion of personal learning networks reinforces Skirky‘s assertion that value is not in the accessing of information, but the collaboration of information.

Research requires reliable information. As doctorial students, I believe the claims we assert must begin with authoritative and accurate information. We are held to the standard of clarifying goals, examining assumptions, evaluating evidence and assessing conclusions. We are also being asked to scholarly expand upon, what to believe or what to do, and do so in an impartial and reflective manner. Any notions of taking knowledge for granted must be put to rest.

Conclusion:
The past six weeks was intense. The role of critical thinking is to propel us past our comfort zone. Ask questions, analyze assumptions, analyze the methods which lead to those assumptions and arrive at a reasonable level of confidence about those assumptions. Critical thinking is required to become a close reader and a substantive writer; it is a way of taking up the problems of life. (Charles Darwin 1856) once implied “it is not the strongest of species that survives or the most intelligent, but the one that adapts.” We must learn to adapt.


Darcy DiNucci
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Clay Shirky
Health 2.0 and The New Economics of Aggregation
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/health_20_economics_of_aggregation.php

Will Richardson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Richardson

Change Agent
http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2010/10/12/01richardson.h04.html

Critical Thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking