Yesterday’s blog sparked some very rich comments about the nature of information. I was reminded of much that I have read and thought about, and alot that I haven’t. I am seriously flatter to have earned a comment from David Thornburg. ..and I am always thrilled to see Tom Hoffman weigh in.
Being deep is not where I want to go with this. I probably don’t have the capacity. On top of that, I think that it does us, as educators, little good to quote media philosophers when what we’re trying to do is convince a complacent public that what our how our children are taught needs to change. Our notions of literacy, I believe in my teacher’s heart, must become far richer than the 3Rs. ..And the only way that we can convince people of this is to be able to explain it as simply as one can explain the 3Rs.
Saying that kids need to learn in new ways because of technology is not enough. However, I think that if we talk about dramatic changes in information (what it looks like, where and how we find it, what we can do with it, how we communicate it) we might make a case for “basic skills” that more closely reflect today’s information landscape.
Image Citation:
Bakker, Conrad. “Information.” UntitledProjects’ Photostream. 13 Jun 2007. 14 Jun 2007 <http://flickr.com/photos/untitledprojects/544096767/>.
Hi Dave,
This is a great conversation. But I will have to disrespectfully disagree with some of your points. Mainly…
Re: ” I think that it does us, as educators, little good to quote media philosophers when what we’re trying to do is convince a complacent public that what our how our children are taught needs to change.”
As a teacher I think it is important to discuss media philosophers and believe that conversation should carry over into the classroom. Also, I wanted to ask you, who are the “complacent public” that you are referring to?
Mechelle
Aren’t the 3R’s “rich, real and relevant”? Isn’t that what teaching should be about? 🙂
While I value the richness of the conversation it’s likely gone beyond my interest and likely my intellect (that’s not that hard). Simple is good, especially for public and PR type discussions. So with that here’s my simple line about information that I use constantly:
“When google can find you the capital cities of ______in .11 seconds, shouldn’t we be asking our students to do more with this than memorizing?”
To me it simple enables us to move to the more difficult issues of learning;spend more time on the higher levels of Blooms.
Grant it, this is very simple and missing many facets but there is real work to be done on dealing even with the immediacy, format and multimedia nature of information that looks very different today than it did 10 years ago. Content is likely not drastically different but a change in format will require different approaches.
Sylvain,
Much of what I see protrayed as “new,” project-based or “rich, real and relevant” is merely old wine in new bottles or sugar-coated medicine. Pretending that agency is being granted to learners while maintaining similar levels of control or by dressing up the same old currciculum is wrong and worse than the status quo.
Those who use clever language to imply educational progress have a special obligation to provide clear of examples of how their pedagogical practice, structure or content is different. I can not evaluate educational options when the only evidence provided is a cliché.
The fact that an activity involves the web or intelligent furniture does not make it better, nor represent the power of the computer or the learner.
David,
You seem to be tossing about a number of theories. However, a lack of precision and clarity makes these theories unverifiable.
Responding to challenges to your theories with “Being deep is not where I want to go with this. I probably don’t have the capacity “ does little to advance your arguments. This is especially worrisome since you are in a privileged position to influence thousands of educators.
-=Gary
Dear David,
With all due respect, I have a real concern with this statement:
“Being deep is not where I want to go with this. ”
I’m racking my brain as to why you would say such a thing. First, we are living the consequences of this attitude with a president who is the King of not being “deep”. By being superficial, we remove questioning from the equation (questioning — ah yes, one of those 21st century skills we talk about). So we are just to accept a statement without exploring it deeply? Sorry, but if if lack of depth is the hallmark of intelligent conversation, then I’m on the wrong planet.
But the deeper concern I have (and trust me, you DO have the capacity to handle it) is that you are writing to a college educated audience who you just insulted by implying that your conversations shouldn’t be deep. If we can’t have deep conversations in the blogosphere, then what is it for? Is it for mindless rants? If so, do these rants merely reinforce the fears of some that what you call Web 2.0 is just more bread and circuses? Heck, some kids watching the Matrix come away with a better grasp of French Postmodern Philosophy than many college grads. If THAT’s not deep, what is?
As a nation we have accepted the sound-bite political blather as the replacement for reasoned thought, and have the 3500 full body bags from Iraq to prove it.
I respect that you are a popular speaker. If the price of popularity is shallow thought, I’m out. I’ve never apologized for having a PhD. I’ve never apologized for reading volumes of media theory that (I think) has allowed me fresh insights on the use of technology in education. Sure, I’m a pencil-necked geek who used to wear pocket protectors and carry slide rules. I had my challenges in school, but persevered, and did pretty well. To my knowledge I’ve never once talked down to my audience or assumed they were too dense to understand what I was saying.
Finally, you said “I probably don’t have the capacity” (for being deep). I know and respect you well enough to know that you DO have the capacity, just as you can be sure that all Yale grads KNOW that the word is “nuclear,” not “nucular,” no matter how well the folksy “Texan” from Kennebunkport tries to be “jes’ plain folk.”
Sorry, David, but I’m with Dr. Stager on this one.
Regards,
David Thornburg
Dear David,
I appreciate the point that you are making and I also appreciate the sense of humility with which you present it. While I agree with Mr. Thornburg’s comments regarding our illustrious leader and his act of “down-homeness”, I certainly would not equate your comments as an effort to appeal to a popular audience in the same manner.
Steve Gram
KISS is a principle that seems to work well in school. Hence, schools doesn’t change much. But the 3Rs have never been simple, they only appear simple to simple people.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” ~Albert Einstein
Leadership would require real study and understanding of the complexity of seemingly but deceptively simple words like data, information, knowledge and then explaining that in ways that everyone can grasp
Would it be sad if “web 2.0” became just a new ahistorical froth and bubble culture (connection is cool), a sort of populist revolution without a real theoretical base. Or maybe it has always been that.
alan kay clarifies this for me:
“Computing spread out much, much faster than educating unsophisticated people can happen. In the last 25 years or so, we actually got something like a pop culture, similar to what happened when television came on the scene and some of its inventors thought it would be a way of getting Shakespeare to the masses. But they forgot that you have to be more sophisticated and have more perspective to understand Shakespeare. What television was able to do was to capture people as they were. So I think the lack of a real computer science today, and the lack of real software engineering today, is partly due to this pop culture.”
source
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Kay
Hi Dave,
I thought I wrote, “I respectfully disagree.” Hmmm…needless to say, I respect you as a person. However, I don’t agree that we should keep it simple to appeal to a wider audience, so to speak. I wonder, if we can’t have deep conversations in education, then where can we have them? Isn’t education about learning new things? When you were a teacher 30 years ago would you have replied as you did, “Being deep is not where I want to go with this. I probably don’t have the capacity,” if one of your students asked you a question? I’m sure you wouldn’t have because you seem like you would have been a great teacher.
Therefore, I am confused by your responses.
Mechelle