Thanks to twitter and Arvind Grover (NYC independent school ed-tech director), I just came across the five minute video "Learning to Change" via his blog 21apples. It is a professionally produced compilation of video comments on technology in education from multiple people including Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind.
The notion of students being part of a community larger than just their school and using that as part of their education is promoted. With that in mind, the following quote from the video interests me in particular:
"You start with the teacher. If I want my students to be making global connections, then I'm going to give the tools to my teachers first and provide them with opportunities to connect with other teachers around the world or other teachers around the country."
That reinforces the notion that teachers need to get connected beyond their school and be provided the technical resources (time, tools, and training) to do that. While some teachers have been doing something like that with an email listserve for years, there are a bunch of newer tools out there that might be more effective and definitely are more appealing to students. Kids are already using some of these for non-school work. Why not leverage their existing skills and interest to further their education and foster a passion for life-long learning?
To read comments about the video (or to add one yourself), check out the YouTube page.
If anyone at D-E has enough interest to spend some time on this, but needs a little help to get started, let me know!
1 comment:
Bill, I'm glad you found the post helpful. I really enjoyed the video, and I think their notion of schools having been created in a different age is essential. I know schools are wedded to tradition in many ways, but at what point is it to the detriment of the students? Do we have to rethink the entire structure? How would we start? Many questions lie ahead, but it's exciting times...
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