[Originally appearing in a brand new blog site, to be announced very soon]
I wrote this a few days ago for a new blogging project (see above). On my way to the airport now, bound for San Francisco and MacWorld. Still haven’t decided what I’m going to say there. Hope I know when I land. 😉
The new year is a time for retrospect and for looking forward to the next twelve months — and beyond. For my 50th podcast episode (12/29/05), I decided to include some predictions about the future of education that I had collected from New York and Texas educators in December. As part of a demonstration of podcasting, I recorded the teachers’ answers to this challenge:
Imagine walking into your classroom in 2015 and describe what you see that wasn’t there in 2006.
Some of the answers were reserved. Many were insightful and far-reaching. Some were hilarious. I ended the podcast with my own vision of the classroom ten years from now. You can listen to the entire episode at Connect Learning, Episode 50.
Some of the resulting blog comments and independent blog reviews of the podcast surprised me. Several educators, whom I respect greatly, felt that many of the ideas expressed in the clips, and especially in my own vision, were too much to expect in the next decade — that funding, staff development, school structure, political will, and a number of other constraints will prevent us from making much change at all. At present, these educators have every right to expect little. After all, how much have classroom computers, Internet in every room, amazing instructional software, and other advancements really changed what teachers and students do in their classrooms?
I think, however, that the pessimism that all of us feel with regard to retooling our classrooms comes from asking the wrong question. Should we be asking…
What should we reasonably expect our education system to achieve in the next ten years?
or should we ask…
What should todays children reasonably expect from our education system over the next ten years?
I think, that our children have every reason to expect a lot more.
David,
Here in Room 208 (Wells Elementary School, 3/4 multiage), we’ve been having a great time with your question. The students immediately connected with it when I told them about your podcast and wanted to answer the question themselves, and create a special podcast with their answers. They’ve been working hard on it since last week and complain every time we have to stop working on it.
We’ve gone through a bit of “retooling” of the question here as well. For instance, I first presented it to the students as this:
“What will a classroom look like in 2015?”
However, 3 days into the writing, my student Mary started asking it this way:
“What SHOULD a classroom look like in 2015?”
We spent about a half an hour discussing the differences between how these two questions were stated. We came to realize that the phrase “will look like” is too passive—as if the changes would happen to us— whereas “should look like” seems more proactive.
In hearing some of the teachers’ responses on your podcast, as well as some of the “pessimistic” postings out there in the blogosphere, I can’t help but think that we as teachers have grown accustomed to things happening to us, rather than being able to affect change.
Because of Mary, I was able to see this question in a whole new light. I propose that we teachers take it to the next step and ask:
“What SHOULD I be doing TODAY (as a teacher) to ensure that our classrooms of 2015 are the classrooms that they SHOULD be?”
I know… a bit wordier… but hopefully helps to further stamp out the pessimism.
My students look forward to sharing their visions with you.
I really like the wisdom of Mary. I think it is a better and more proactive to look at what classrooms should be like. I have posed this question to many students over the past week as well. I’ve had some really interesting responses. I do not have a podcast but would be willing to record some responses and send them your way David.
My comment to the podcast focused on two things:
1.) I sure hope the classroom of 2015 does not disappear. I can’t imagine what would happen to Bob’s students if they did not get to see him and their classmates on a daily basis. I’ve been in his classroom and he truly does wonderful things with his kids!
2.) I think that David’s thoughts are wonderful for the classroom of 2015. The idea of being able to use the entire classroom as a projection device is too cool! I just don’t forsee these changes happening so quickly. How many classrooms currently even have an LCD projector for teachers and students to use?
I hope my comments were not misunderstood as being pessimistic. I push for this kind of change everyday.
There’s a great article in this months Edutopia magazine by Marc Prensky titled, “Adopt and Adapt – 21st Century Schools Need 21st Century Technology”. It’s a very intesting read when thinking about this thread and the balance between David’s thoughts and Steven Dembow’s.
I already have seen change greater than what Stephen describes in his podcast in my school as we enter our fourth year of 1:1 computing. The greatest changes I have seen are not the technological changes, but the pedagogical ones. Teachers and students are collaborating much more than I have ever seen in the past. This collaboration takes on many faces:
Teacher to teacher
Teacher to student
Student to student
Student to teacher
The next step will be to get our teachers and student collaborating more with the outside world. We’re almost there, but we scarily fall into Prensky’s steps of technology adoption in this area:
1. Dabbling
2. Doing old things in old ways
3. Doing old things in new ways
4. Doing new things in new ways
All of our computers are white by the way, but that really doesn’t matter 😉
Great idea on asking the students what a classroom SHOULD look like in 2015. I’ll give the task to some of my 5th graders, and have them podcast about it.
I enjoyed your podcast Dave, and your love for science fiction shows.
Its fun thinking about what a classroom should look like in ten years and what technologies will be available for us to use in the classroom. What is available and what will be used of course are always two different things. If you haven’t already, take 10 minutes out of your day to watch the epic2015 video. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/epic
What the future holds for technology and for education, who knows. I’m just excited to be in education in this time of change. I’m with you Dave. The time is coming when the students are going to say “Enough is enough†I’ll even help them make the picket signs. ïÂÅ