The Internet and being a Life-long Learner
This is a concept, which I wholeheartedly embrace. There are many different types of learning that can take place at many different stages, and places, in our life. One could argue that we are learning all the time, ALL the time, whether we realize it or not - Social learning, emotional learning, physical learning, spiritual learning and educational learning. In many ways, all these threads are inter-connected. Just what we learn, is down a lot to circumstance and the exercise of our free agency.
One of the greatest aids to educational learning, is
the Internet. My husband is a testament
to this, as one of the first, to finish a Masters Degree, taught entirely through
the Internet.
Of course, it cannot take the place of real life, or real life experience, but it can open up a new, and ever increasing, world of information. Not all the information is good, that is down to human nature. Still the Internet has so much to offer.
Take last week. My 4 year old asks me if bees have a skeleton and lungs. I have to confess that I did not know. We looked on Encarta, a CD encyclopaedia, and then onto the Internet. What we found was breath-taking!
Bees, and all insects (those with 6 legs) have exoskeletons. They breathe through spiracles, and do not have red blood cells to carry oxygen around the body. We learned this, and a wealth of other information, well presented, with pictures to aid understanding, and a movie to explain how they dance to show other bees where the best nectar is.
If I want to know anything about anything, there is usually something on the Internet that will tell me what I want to know. Wonderful