What Would Socrates Say?

Socrates, hes probably glad not to live in this day and age. Is there really a difference between now and then? People's mannerisms do not really change. Whether it be because the internet or any other medium of information, people will not take responsibility for thier own knowledge and understanding to think on a higher level of thought.

I think that webquest could be used in cognitive thinking depending on how well the webquest was designed.

"Socrates believed that we learn best by asking essential questions and testing
tentative answers against reason and fact in a continual and virtuous circle of
honest debate."

In webquests, students are required to do more than recall facts but think critically within thier group to come up with solutions. A good webquest requires this higher level of thinking to apply what they have learned and test different ideas until a suitable resolution is reached.

A webquest is a good practice on how to survive in a 21st century world. Because of the incline of websites and the constant need to have information at our finger tips, students must learn how to filter through this information and evaluate it for what its worth. This point is made evident from Cookson's article.

"We can blend the best of our traditional intellectual linear
culture—Socrates' wisdom of the 5th century BCE—with the current digital
culture, creating a new learning and intellectual environment consistent
with the cognitive and expressive demands of the 21st century."

Webquesting does not end at an answer. "For Socrates, answers were always steps on the way to deeper questions." Each group will inevitable discover different things and have different ideas on the way things work. From these discoveries it is the students' responsibility to take learning to another level by questioning these decisions and researching them.

Multi-media and the recent technological boom that allows people to recieve consistant information about the world on a moment by moment notice is not the end of the thought process. This technology could actually lead us into a whole new demension of thinking. Just because Socrates' may have approved of webquests, doesn't mean that this informational boom is all for the good of mankind. Just with every other revolution in the world, it is the individuals responsibility to take control of his thinking. The future of the world depends on how we choose to live.