Extreme frustration is giving way to a mild attachment I’m beginning to feel my new Motorola Q phone. I’ve never complained about the slightly larger screen (larger than Treos) and vibrant display. But my eyes started to twinkle when I discovered that my new favorite RSS reader, Google Reader, has a handheld version that works wonderfully well through my Q. I’m reading more blogs now, in off moments away from my computer. Plus, when I’m at my computer, I want to work. I want to build. I don’t want to read.
More about the building part later.
Anyway, I read in Will Richards blog this morning, an e-mail message he received from a desperate educator who was seeing valuable information resources blocked away from students because of the discomfort of librarians and supervisors. I was reminded of something that Will recently said to Dean Shareski, and some of his friends, — a conversation that Dean recorded ans posted on one of recent Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech, Podcast 22 Conversations on Change. In talking about our efforts to reshape teaching and learning to the changing shape of information (my phrasing), Will said that we are dealing with cultural change.
It was a simple phrase, but it illustrated pretty clearly how tumultuous this struggle is. We have been invaded and the conquerers are unkindly imposing a new way of thinking about information, the fuel of our economy.
But who are the invaders?
Are they our children, the digital natives?
Or is it simply the future?
Are we simply at one of those points in history where the future and the past meet, like opposing tectonic plates, grinding against each other, erupting into devastating quakes and forcing up magnificent mountain ranges.
What will be the renaissance that will result from today’s turmoils?
What do you think?
Image Citation:
LovemaX, “Gondla Village.” LovemaX’s Photostream. 29 Sep 2006. 15 Dec 2006 <http://flickr.com/photos/lovemax/255440643/>.
Technorati Tags: warlick digital natives immigrants
It certainly feels like the grinding of techtonic plates! When talking to a colleague the other day about the possiblibites that blogging holds for students, she remarked that she would be willing but who has the time to learn the necessary skills. When I look at the learning that I am doing and the identity work that it requires, I am not surprised by the glacially slow adaptation of teachers to the new environment. The structure of schools is hard pressed to deal with rapid change. ‘A renaissance?” We may need to revision school, are the politicians and taxpayers on the same page as the edutechs? I suspect not. Time will tell.
I sometimes feel like I would like to consult with a soothsayer and see where all this is going.. For years I’ve been hearing how education was so far behind but it didn’t seem to matter. School was an easy going place, a safe place, but now they are pressure cookers, the grinding of techtonic plates. The sad part is that there are so many teachers that blame the kids for the problems with education. They don’t see that we procrastinated too long about catching up with the rest of the world, that our students aren’t prepared for the world they are entering, that our schools have fallen behind.They don’t even see the changes around them. Sometimes I wonder if the changes I am seeing are imaginary, but they aren’t, the knower knows.
Information is the backbone of the global economy, information is also a key factor in education. How we deliver instruction has to be a fit with how kids will use information in the real world. But as we know we can’t really prepare them in the old way, for an old “future” because things are changing at a rapid rate. This renaissance is liberating because what we need to prepare kids for is how to problem solve, how to adopt quickly to change, how to hold onto a few pieces of what you have learned and add to it, processes will be more important and will need to transfer into new and different environments. What I find to be exciting is that we are living in a world where there will be a place for the creative mind, flattening the world has expanded it. Sharing information such as we see in web 2.0 technologies can give our educational system a jump start. It can help our students manage information, create products and communicate globally. The possibilities are endless. Who knows maybe the schools will have their golden days again. Maybe Plato’s Dialogues were really just a blog and we have come full circle to another Age of Enlightenment. That’s how I like to think of it.
David – Fortunately my school district doesn’t block some web 2.0 applications. Therefore I will hopefully be able to make this work.
http://learningismessy.com/blog/?p=165
Time Magazine seems to be getting it! After the excellent article last week, today’s cover story is the Person of the Year…
[ you http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html?aid=434&from=o&to=http%3A//www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C1569514%2C00.html%5D
Should they have said “us?”
It is so exciting to see the conversation moving into more of a public forum!
Carolyn