[Live Blogged — please forgive any misspellings or awkward wording]
Each spring, MEGA holds a showcase event where teachers and students from the area (all over central North Carolina) are here demonstrating some of the things that they are doing with technology, and mostly with science. Interestingly, I’ve seen two classes that are using MUVEs (Multi-User Virtual Environments) in learning. An elementary school that I did some staff development in a couple of years ago. They are using a tool called Quest Atlantis. The children are playing the rolls of humans who have landed in Atlantis to help the people (beings) there to solve their problems.
The high school class is using
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| Tim Magner, Director of the Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education. |
Tim Magner, the director of Educational Technology with the Department of Education in Washington, is our speaker, and is said to be planing to talk about School 2.0. I’ll be jotting notes down here.
We’re not in Kansas any more. Things are different. Lots of reports that are talking about these changes and education is the engine of our continued economic viability.
The advantage of using a cell phone over using a pay phone is that we prefer to call a person, not a place. That was an interesting distinction, but mostly the presentation is the same sort of thing that David Thornburg has been doing for years. But the message is important. It’s an information and communication revolution. We are needing more information, sharing more information, using more information. “We now connected in more ways to more people and more information than ever before.“
Kids prefer text messaging, but it isn’t just text. They’re sharing images, audio, and video — multimedia.
He’s talking ab out neil gershenfeld’s predictions about digital fabrication. What do MUVEs help us in preparation for a world where the fabrication of our things is personal. You’ll buy the chasis of a cell phone and design and make your own housing. Very personal.
Now he’s showing a very interesting video about nanotechnology and the ability to have medication gear specifically to our DNA characteristics. Nanotools that seek out and kill cancer cells. He states that these are not only the new tools, but also the new jobs. I would add that it is also the new questions.
Now, we’re getting getting to School 2.0. The problem is that people talk past each other. There is no entry point language to use. It’s the reason that they created the School 2.0 Post. Now he’s opened it up for discussion. There was a question about the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. He says that what left out of this description of 21st century skills what it actually looks like in the 7th grade classroom. “This is the messy stuff. This is the stuff that doesn’t fit on a bummer sticker.“
I was at the MEGA event and was a bit disappointed with the key speaker’s responses during the comment portion. I walked away feeling a bit disappointed. I guess I was hoping that he had grand ideas for how to change our education system to better prepare this generation of students to compete in a global market.
I guess we can change one school at a time but my fear is that we will run out of time. More funding for technology in schools is a must have! Reallocating funds is not acceptable! We also need more leaders who have a great visions of what our schools can and should be.
This was a good post from techlearning….. check it out!
http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604409
I’ll have to say that I wasn’t disappointed — and probably because my expectations were not high. ..and this in itself is what’s sad, that we have come to expect little from government, except for overbearing regulation, and underfunded mandates (I can’t believe I said that).
That said, I was impressed with Tim Magner. I had the opportunity to have dinner with him and four other educators associated with MEGA, so what he said in the presentation and what I heard last night are probably running together. He has seen some pretty amazing examples of education that is working and our challenge is to figure out how to publicize and replicate.
I do agree with you that we do not have time for “one school at a time.” Disaster, I’m afraid, is on the horizon. Yet, I have to agree that just putting more money into the classrooms is not going to get us there unless we have a new vision — and that’s going to be tough.
I think what had the greatest impression on me was when he said that we have no common language for shaping that vision. This is a huge barrier, and it’s why that vision has to be plain, simple (three or four bullet points), and energizing.
Dave,
I agree. I like what you wrote about how the vision has to be plain, simple and energizing.
As far as Tim Magner, I was impressed him too. Perhaps I was too hard on him last night. I think that he caught the brunt of my frustrations.
I guess I was hoping he would have more answers for us on how to make the change happen and how to develop the common language, But I realize that was probably putting too much pressure on him!
Thank you, Dave, for continuing to inspire us to make the changes in our small ways! And I appreciate opportunites like MEGA to connect with other educators who are working to make changes too! It was great to see all of the projects that schools are taking on and the impact that these projects are having on students.