The Internet and Stages of Education

As we talked about "The Internet" and the author Dreyfus we began discussing the stages of education. There are five stages and they discuss distance learning. It is thought that the first couple of stages can be done in most part through the internet because the way we learn is first getting the information in raw form. In this aspect the internet is very good, and can help learning. This continues through the advanced beginner level and into the competence level. In order to move from the competence to the proficiency level there really has to be at least one human contact in order to see how that type of person acts. This allows the learner to see how a person that has already mastered the skills uses their skills. There really is a style about poeple that have mastered a skill. The difference between competency and proficiency is that although a person that is competant will achieve close to the same thing as the person that is proficient the person that is proficient will not have to think as much about what they are doing as they do the task; whereas the competant person will have to think back to what they learned in the past. Then the jump from being proficient to being an expert or master is the mere fact that the master does things that are brilliant but makes it look effortless. This reminds me of the greatest tennis player in the world Roger Federer. I was lucky enough to see him play over the summer in Mason Ohio and the things he did on the tennis court were amazing. I mean everyone knows how to play tennis and if given the perfect circumstances I could play the game as well as Roger, but he plays the game with so much confidence and never looking over-exerted. If I served a ball 135 m.p.h. I would be exhausted after that serve whereas he was serving that way the entire match and then serving and volleying at a mastery level as well. It almost looked like he was bored out on the tennis court as he was beating the 40th best player in the world. A lot of people say practice will cause things to become second nature like that and that may be true. I also believe that his style is second to none because you would never see Roger Federer question a call on the court. Many players stress over the officials calls and even throw thier racquets when they miss a shot but not Roger, everyhting seemed to be a part of his masterful plot to win the game. By watching this player play the game I believe it really helped me understand how the best should play and act. I couldn't have understood this style by learning about it on the internet I had to see him in action in order to completely understand. I believe this is what Dreyfus is trying to make clear to us in his writing.