by Scott McLeod | Nov 22, 2010 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Pre-Service Preparation, Professional Development, Tech Integration |
If we were really serious about educational technology, we would… [here are 10 to get you started]
- show students how to edit their privacy settings and use groups in Facebook instead of banning online social networks because they’re ‘dangerous’ and/or ‘frivolous’;
- teach students to understand and contribute to the online information commons rather than ‘just saying no’ to Wikipedia;
- put a robust digital learning device into every student’s hands (or let them bring and use their own) instead of pretending that we live in a pencil, notebook paper, and ring binder world;
- photo © 2006 Michael Surran | more info (via: Wylio)integrate digital learning and teaching tools into subject-specific preservice methods courses rather than marginalizing instructional technology as a separate course;
- understand the true risk of students encountering online predators and make policy accordingly instead of succumbing to scare tactics by the media, politicians, law enforcement, computer security vendors, and others;
- find out the exact percentage of our schools’ families that don’t have broadband Internet access at home rather than treating the amorphous ‘digital divide’ as a reason not to assign any homework that involves use of the Internet;
- treat seriously and own personally the task of becoming proficient with the digital tools that are transforming everything instead of nonchalantly chuckling about how little we as educators know about computers;
- recognize the power and potential (and limitations) of online learning rather than blithely assuming that it can’t be as good as face-to-face instruction;
- tap into and utilize the technological interest and knowledge of students instead of pretending that they have nothing to contribute;
- better educate and train school administrators rather than continuing to turn out new leaders that know virtually nothing about creating, facilitating, and/or sustaining 21st century learning environments;
- and so on…
What else could we add to the list?
If we were really serious about [educational technology issue], we would [?] instead of [?].
It’s almost 2011. Isn’t it time for us to get serious about educational technology?
by Scott McLeod | Nov 1, 2010 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Pre-Service Preparation, Professional Development, Social Media, Videos, Youth and Media |
If you’re like me, you have trouble keeping up with all of the great videos that are out there. I love it when others help me separate the wheat from the chaff.
For my column this month for the School Administrators of Iowa newsletter, I listed a dozen videos that I thought would help spark educators’ thinking about the changes that are occurring around us. None of these are videos that we already have used in the technology leadership training that we’ve done statewide for principals and superintendents.
School leaders and/or educator preparation programs could show these videos to practicing or preservice administrators and teachers, school boards, or community members to maintain a heightened sense of urgency for change. I usually recommend to administrators that, every time they’re face-to-face with a group, they show a video or share something they recently read or learned. They also could, for example, assign one of these videos as ‘homework’ ahead of a meeting. The important thing is to keep sharing how our world is changing and to keep discussing what it means for our educational practice.
Here’s my list, in no particular order:
- Sir Ken Robinson, Changing education paradigms (11 minutes)
- Sugatra Mitra, The child-driven education (17 minutes)
- Clay Shirky, How cognitive surplus will change the world (13 minutes)
- Chris Anderson, How web video powers global innovation (19 minutes)
- Dean Shareski, Sharing: The moral imperative (25 minutes)
- Henry Jenkins, TEDxNYED (18 minutes)
- Daniel Pink, Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us (11 minutes)
- Dan Meyer, Math class needs a makeover (12 minutes)
- Jeff Jarvis, TEDxNYED (17 minutes)
- Lisa Nielsen, Response to principal who bans social media (4 minutes)
- New Brunswick Department of Education, 21st century education in New Brunswick (6 minutes)
- Charles Leadbeter, On innovation (19 minutes)
Happy viewing!
Image credit: iPod Nano 3rd generation
by Scott McLeod | Oct 22, 2010 | 21st Century Skills, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World |
[cross-posted at The Huffington Post]
I’ve watched this TED talk by Sugata Mitra several times now. And every time I watch it, my brain keeps asking the same question:
In the world’s richest country - indeed, in all ‘Westernized’ societies - what are our (pitiful?) excuses, again, for not putting computers in the hands of our children every day at school and giving them greater agency over their own learning?
[I love the Indian child’s quote: ‘Apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease, we’ve understood nothing else.’]
by Scott McLeod | Oct 1, 2010 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Our Changing World, Social Media, Youth and Media |
Today’s front-page headline on the paper version of USA Today: Has social media gone too far?
Seriously? That’s the headline?
When a drunk driver runs over someone, do we blame the car? When an abusive spouse knifes his or her significant other, do we blame the knife? When an arsonist burns down a house, do we blame the match? When a robber shoots a victim, do we blame the gun?
The Internet is not like weapons or illegal drugs, which arguably are inherently dangerous. It’s more like a car or an ice pick: a useful tool that also can be misused, just like any other.
So we can put blame where it should be - squarely on the offender - or we can be stupid about this. We can address the core issue - education and parenting – or we can blame the tool. In each case, I vote for the former. How about you?
by Scott McLeod | Sep 29, 2010 | 21st Century Skills, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Pre-Service Preparation, Tech Integration |
Steve Dembo said:
I don’t see it as teachers spurning technology, or choosing not to take advantage of those new ideas and tools. I think most teachers don’t even realize that there’s a decision to be made. It’s not a matter of choosing the red pill or the blue pill… if you don’t know that there are even two pills available as options.
… A teacher that has never heard of Blabberize or Glogster or Prezi, has never been introduced to the new world of online applications that are available to them. They likely don’t follow blogs or listen to podcasts. They have probably never been to an EdTech conference or seen a TED talk. In short, they’re just ordinary, average educators who aren’t aware that there’s a whole other world that they have easy access to… if they just ‘take the blue pill’.
… I’m all for conversations about ‘big’ change. And yes, I agree, it’s not the technology, it’s the pedagogy. However, I also think that you need at least a minimal base to build from before you can have those conversations. And the vast majority of the educators in this country do NOT have that base yet.
Every day that I present for educators, I have a greater appreciate for how distorted the view is as seen through the eyes of a typical EduBlogger. In fact, the majority of the voices in the EdTech Community are so far ahead of the curve that it doesn’t even seem like their on the same road anymore. Most educators have never listened to a podcast, much less created one. They’ve never edited a wiki, much less started one of their own. So how on earth could they be expected to have a rational conversation about the impact new technologies are having on the skill sets our students need? Simply put, they can’t. The majority of the voices many of us listen to on a regular basis… actually represent just a tiny fraction of the educators out there. We’re the minority, the outsiders, the ones who talk using strange terms involving words with far too many missing vowels.
Darren Draper said:
the large majority of teachers that I know are very caring individuals that believe firmly in life-long learning. Most love teaching because making a difference in the lives of our youth can be the most rewarding profession on the planet. Most love kids, love community, and want to share. It’s not that they don’t want to try new things, it’s not that they’re lazy, and it’s not that they’re incapable. Rather, it’s that their priorities don’t always line up with those of other progressive educators in and out of the blogosphere. I’m not saying it’s right, but I am trying to describe the reality that so many in the blogosphere seem to misunderstand.
Darren also said:
Those content to lurk but still hesitant (or unable, for whatever reason) to contribute.
The fact of the matter is that there exist a very large number of effective educators that are simply not able to contribute in any significantly recurrent amount to online discussion. All told, it’s not that they’re incapable of participating and it’s not that they’re unwilling. Rather, this group maintains perceived silence online because their professional priorities prohibit them from spending the time or energy required to provide plausible contribution.
To which I say, NO, WE CAN’T LET EDUCATORS OFF THE HOOK. Whether they’re teachers or administrators or librarians or education professors, they have a voluntarily-assumed, paid responsibility to be relevant to the needs of children and education TODAY and to prepare graduates as best they are able for TOMORROW. ‘Professional priorities’ must be aimed at preparing students for the world as it is and will be. Otherwise, what are educators there for?
You can’t ‘firmly believe in life-long learning’ and simultaneously not be clued in to the largest transformation in learning that ever has occurred in human history. Those two don’t co-exist. Being a ‘life-long learner’ is not ignoring what’s going on around you; you don’t get to claim the title of ‘effective educator’ if you do this.
Look, it’s not like those of us who now ‘get it’ were born with this knowledge. We weren’t like this at the beginning. At some point in our personal histories we were the same as these educators that for some reason now get to be labeled as ‘unable’ to do this. Unable to do this? Poppycock. At no time in the personal computer / Internet era has this technology and social media stuff been easier to initiate. It’s not like back when you needed to know computer coding. Want to use a wiki? Click Edit; type; click Save. Want to leave a comment on a blog? Click on Comments; type in your name, e-mail, school web site, and comment; click on Save. There isn’t an educator alive who ‘can’t do that.’ They engage in similarly-easy activity every time they search or order something online.
The reason many of us now ‘get it’ is because we realized that the world is changing, we recognized our responsibility to our students and schools, and we dived in and learned as we went along. Changing inertia into momentum, not waiting for someone to hand us the answer, taking responsibility ourselves rather than blaming others for our own inactivity – that’s what life-long learners do. That’s what effective educators do. That’s what we owe our children.
If you’re a teacher / administrator / librarian / education professor that somehow ‘doesn’t even realize [yet] that there’s a decision to be made,’ should you even be working in a school or university? Don’t our children and our school systems need and deserve someone who’s in a different place than you are? It’s one thing to still be a learner; heck, we’re all learners with this technology stuff. It’s another to opt out or not even recognize the choice. If we look at what our kids need, shouldn’t we replace you with someone else?
It’s not about us. It’s not about our personal or professional priorities and preferences, our discomfort levels, or any of that other stuff that has to do with us. It’s about our students: our children and our youth who deserve at the end of their schooling experience to be prepared for the world in which they’re going to live and work and think and play and be. That’s the obligation of each and every one of us. No educator gets to disown this.
We can’t let educators off the hook. Not a single one. So keep that fishhook firmly wedged in their mouths. Keep tugging them along on the line. Keep scooping them up in our nets. Feed them tasty tidbits if need be. Do whatever it takes to make this happen. But insist on them doing the same.
Image credits: My fish hook; Slide – Should teachers get to choose?
by Scott McLeod | Sep 28, 2010 | Blogging, Our Changing World, Social Media |
Here’s a quote for you:
… I’ve decided to hang up my blogging hat. I was a fool, and I didn’t anticipate how this kind of thing could happen. As many of our readers and my students know, I’m opinionated and willing to push boundaries. This is what I think is the role of a professor, and blogging allowed me to do it in an informal and diverse manner. But I misunderstood the technology, and the consequences are devastating for me personally.
– Time to go, Todd Henderson, Professor of Law, University of Chicago
If a distinguished law professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the world doesn’t understand “the technology,” that’s probably indicative that most others don’t either.
Yet another reason why we should be educating our students on how to do this social media stuff rather than just blocking it…
Image credit: Walk away from me…
by Scott McLeod | Sep 15, 2010 | 21st Century Skills, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Workforce and Economy |
Postulate 1: There likely has never been a greater disconnect than right now between the skills our factory-model schools give our graduates and the skills they need for success in a technology-suffused, globally-interconnected information economy.
Postulate 2: It’s increasingly difficult for most families to survive economically on a single income. Working families (whether they have one breadwinner or two) need someplace to send their children while they’re at work.
It used to be that our kids went to school so that they could then go to work. When you look at the driving forces behind maintenance of today’s schooling model (and, perhaps, obstruction of whatever new model eventually replaces it), is it more true now that we’re sending our kids to school so that we can go to work? Which is of higher urgency to us: their needs or ours?
Just thinking out loud here…
Image credit: Hiding to eat big bro’s lunch?
