I recently compiled a short list of quotations that have greatly influenced my thinking about schools, technology, and the future. I’ve been handing it out to K-12 administrators to spark their thinking about schools’ obligations to prepare students for a digital society. I’m including it here and encourage you to disseminate it broadly. Pass this out to the staff in a school building, or to a group of administrators, and then ask them what they think! Get a conversation started!

• Digital kids. Analog schools.

On a different front, Consuela Molina is a student at UCLA, a gifted videographer, and a graduate of the San Fernando Education Technology Team (SFETT). Molina’s video, Digital Kids @ Analog Schools, should be required viewing for secondary educators, college faculty, and university administrators. Here are some choice quotes from the video:

• We have all this access to technology – something that can help us learn better – something that can help us personalize learning – and professors don’t really seem to get that.
• The workforce is … moving more towards a creative side. We’re not preparing students with skills that are necessary for these new kinds of jobs that we have.
• The jobs that colleges are preparing us for are jobs that are being outsourced.
• Anywhere you go outside of the classroom, that technology is being used… and I don’t understand why we’re not applying it to class.
• It seems like in order to progress in the world you need a document that says you’ve learned, regardless if you’ve really learned the skills that you need in the workplace.
• If your sole purpose is just to prepare them for the future, then you have to go outside and see what the future’s going to be.
• If this place isn’t perfecting my skills for the new business world, then why am I here?

It’s easy to substitute teacher or school for professor or college and see the relevance of this video to K-12 schools. If you are not familiar with the work of Marco Torres or the SFETT, you can read the two articles on his Edutopia profile.