I feel really fortunate that Edutopia asked me to give my perspective on the Read/Write Web for its October issue, and the essay titled The New Face of Learning is now online. Since the magazine doesn’t have a function for comments, please feel free to continue the conversation here if you like.
technorati tags:read/write_web, Edutopia, education, learning, weblogg-ed
Dear Will
As always, you are incredibly articulate! This article really hits the nail on the head and I plan to put a link not only in my blog but on our school web page for the parents.
One of the illusive catch phrases in our district is “life long learnersâ€. It shows up in the Student learning Expectations of many schools but has always been an ambiguous goal with little opportunity to measure our effectiveness. In one sense we will never know because as you said the proof only comes many years later. However, to the extent that we empower the students and teach digital literacy we can be confident that they have the tools to pursue this lofty goal. As we also find ways to more beyond the curricular restraints to allow students to develop learning networks we may even witness a metamorphosis, which gives witness to budding life long learners.
You say…
“When we’re faced with a flattening world where collaboration is becoming the norm, forcing students to work alone seems to miss the point. And when many of our students are already building networks far beyond our classroom walls, forming communities around their passions and their talents,….â€
This is one of the truly challenging points for us as educators ….collaboration….not just allowing it but encouraging students to collaborate means a radical change to our most common ways of teaching and assessing. I think this is worthy of more reflection.
I was talking to a district administrator two days ago. The discussion was in regards to 1:1 laptops. She works in a district that already has 90% of the kids meeting or exceeding state standards, and she wondered what the students could gain with increased access to hardware. You have eloquently stated in a few 100 words, what I tried to express in a 40 minute conversation. Well done! Keep evangelizing for ed tech!
Will — It is 4:52am and I’m at the tail end of feeding a 3 week old child, a child that will grow up entirely in the world you are so passionately outlining for us. Instead of craving sleep at this minute, I find myself wanting to type, blog, publish, further pushing on your message in the Edutopia article, further speaking the truth about reenvisioning our classrooms and the shift to nomadic learners that graze rather than accept ‘coverage’ in linear terms. I have great respect for Edutopia — a group I work with on a regular basis — and even more so after their invitation to you to write and share this piece. 3 months from now I’ll be presenting a conference presentation to a room full of architects and district facility leaders, looking towards a new way of imagining learning spaces that can embrace the learning world you so eloquently define, and along with Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, I will also share this essay of yours as an indicator that we can either lose relevance or passionately adapt with a re-defined view of what learning in a read/write world allows.
You continue to not just push the envelope in your work, but suggest that the envelope is no longer relevant…but that the inner heart of learning, “by whatever means necessary,” is what we must embrace. Thank you…and if finding oneself re-energized in the middle of the night after feeding a newborn can be accomplished by an article about the read/write web, then I think you’ve done something fairly provocative and affirming all at once.
Cheers,
Christian
Dear Will
A historic post – the Lutheran Thesis for a new way of learning
Thank you
Rob
Will, Thank you. You ask how the Internet is going to change the nature of government. I doubt that it would happen at a federal level, but as people learn to interact with the Web 2.0 in ever more complicated ways and gain increased access to it, what would be the problem of putting more policy decisions before the entire public. Rather than having Congress, state legislatures, or city councils vote on some issues they could be put before the public. (In a much more regular way than periodic elections.) This change in governance would require a more educated citizenry, something that you discuss in your article.
Andrew Pass
http://www.Pass-Ed.com/blogger.html
I manage a little nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing place based, active education to our rual Missouri area. We have from the begining seen the internet as a primary tool, and run a 600 page website all about local history, culture and environment. It’s averaging 730,000 hits a month, and gets plenty of use in local schools as a teaching tool, as well as a student showcase and teacher resource. I’d like to think we are part of the change you are talking about – and I am truly inspired by your broader vision.
My question: Who is paying for this kind of service? Not our school districts! We survive on an EPA grant that requires a 40% match, local donations, and a few private foundations. We’re working for peanuts, have no benefits, and are constantly shilling for dollars to support our shoestring budget.
The school districts we serve aren’t thinking they need to pay for anything on the internet. Where’s the money going to come from?