Here’s my guiding question for the ISTE conference this year (for both presenters and vendors). If you’re at ISTE right now, I encourage you to ask this question too!
Image credit: Because I’ve never told him he can’t fly, Lotus Carroll
Here’s my guiding question for the ISTE conference this year (for both presenters and vendors). If you’re at ISTE right now, I encourage you to ask this question too!
Image credit: Because I’ve never told him he can’t fly, Lotus Carroll
And parallel to that, how does it empower the individual teacher to create great learning environments for students?
Our question is: if edtech is so rarely used in A+ countries’ schools, why do American educators think it’s going to empower American students?
Or maybe how does your product show kids that they have the authority to claim power for themselves? How does your product let kids exercise their own power?
I’m in the Rafi Santo camp regarding empowerment – we exercise our own power (or not); it’s not something others give us or can take from us.
Have fun at #ISTE13!
C
How does your product transform learning in the classroom or What does effective implementation in the classroom look like? – Simple question requiring a complex response.
I think this question goes beyond ISTE. We should ask ourselves this every day, for every lesson.
Very important question no doubt. But.
Does everyone have to change the world? Does everything we do have to be about empowerment?
You know I’m all for changing our system and you and I are on the same page with these big ideas but I worry that when we only want these questions asked, we forget that much of our lives aren’t always about changing the world. I’m not sure all our kids should be tasked with changing the world. They certainly shouldn’t be discouraged but technology is sometimes about making things a bit easier, a bit more enjoyable. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Again, not saying this isn’t an incredibly important idea but just strikes me sometimes as forgetting that life and learning is also about little things that are necessarily going to change the world but might make it a little more liveable.