After visiting the MET in Providence, I am convinced that Littky has already answered this question with an entirely new way of thinking of school - and he has plenty of data to show IT WORKS!
This link has been bookmarked by 129 people and liked by 1 people. It was first bookmarked on 09 Apr 2008, by Liz Dorland.
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27 Jan 14
Cindy Brown-LeighArticle: If We Didn’t have the schools we have today, would we create the schools we have today?
Although a bit dated with references to CD Roms etc. (circa 2000), this article is talking about the difference between how we prepare our educators and the actual way students learn in a globally aware and connected world. We continue to base our public school system on the industrial age model where teachers are expected to know information, then parcel it out to students in a conscripted and linear manner. This article argues that today’s learners have gone so far beyond this model, it’s incredible that schools exist in the same way as they did for the last century. If engineers or doctors still operated the same way they did 100 years ago, they would have no credibility. Why then, do schools systems insist on continuing with the status quo. If we had the chance (if we weren’t paid by provincial governments) would we still create the school system we have today or would we completely overhaul it?
There is a place in Canada that is trying to do just that. My daughter has been looking into applying at Quest University, a private university in Squamish, BC where the educators don’t call themselves professors, they have no defined departments, and the students have significant input into the curriculum. They work on a block system where students immerse themselves in one subject entirely for a month, then move on to another subject. They may take language for September, biology for October, then calculus for November etc. This creates the opportunity to immerse themselves in a discipline and develop a much deeper level of understanding. The similarities between Quest’s mandate and this article is interesting. The author states “everyone becomes a learner in a Networked Learning Community, and the distinctions between students and teachers fade away.” There are three dimensions to a networked learning community and today we only use the first one. Teachers have knowledge, and we share it with our students. The second dimension is knowledge adaptation where existing knowledge is revised through experience. The third dimension of a learning community is “invention” where young and old learn to collaboratively construct new knowledge. We are certainly not there yet, but with proper teacher training and opportunities to take courses such as this one, we as educators can make the changes necessary to continue helping our students succeed in our fast-changing world. We (or more specifically, I) just need to keep up! -
05 Mar 13
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If we have a system that does not fit our needs anymore, we must begin thinking about how to transform the educational system we have.
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Critics—cybercynics—say, “We don’t need computers in schools. Learning is best done through face-to-face interaction without these technologies (especially in early grades), and we don’t need computers to improve education in our schools today.”
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The cyberprophets say that, with networked computers, we do not need schools.
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Anyone who thinks we do not need schools does not have children.
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Although we are trying to use modern learning technologies to move away from this one-way, broadcast mode of instruction, we often find technology still being used in schools to reinforce one-way communication and passive modes of learning.
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The assumption is that the faculty member will transmit knowledge to the student teacher, and at the end of four years a transition will occur, through which that student teacher will become a classroom teacher engaged in yet another one-way transmission to K-12 students (“S”). Those K-12 students, in turn, leave the teacher’s classroom and use that knowledge in ways that are not known to the faculty, the next cohort of student teachers, or to the teacher in the classroom. There is no way for the faculty or teachers to collaboratively learn and construct new knowledge in this system—no way for them to know whether the knowledge that might have been acquired by the student teacher is actually the knowledge the student teacher then conveys as a teacher to the K-12 students.
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The learning is going on inside the circle, but the teacher is standing outside like a soccer coach on the sideline, waving at everybody while the game is going on.
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as a cultural anthropologist, schools resist change, because they are designed to resist change. They are cultural organizations, and cultural organizations are not supposed to change.
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Cultures are designed to preserve existing solutions to problems—considerable social and economic capital goes into developing culturally valued solutions to problems and change is risky.
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we should remember that over 50 percent of the world’s population has never made a phone call.
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First, the purpose of education will move from being curriculum driven to being learning centered.
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As nonlinear learners, they will not read from the beginning of the book to the end, or study through a sequential series of courses organized to support a linear progression of learning. They are learning to access and use knowledge when and where they need it.
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31 Oct 12
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27 May 10
Jim JuliusIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?
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09 Mar 10
emapeyVia: http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/if-we-could-start-over-what-would-we-build/
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08 Feb 10
Ángeles AraguzIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?
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31 Jul 09
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If a surgeon from the 1800s walked into an operating room today where arthroscopic surgery was being performed, could that surgeon step in and perform the surgery? No way. The surgeon would not even understand what the procedure was, would not understand what the instruments were, and would be totally lost about what was going on.
But if a teacher from the 1800s walked into a classroom today, could he or she substitute as a teacher? If so, why would that be possible? Perhaps the educators of the 1800s were able to anticipate the needs of the 21 st century and designed a system that perfectly fits our educational purposes today. The other possibility is that our industrial era schools have not changed to keep pace with our current understanding of cognition and learning. If this system of factory era schooling does not meet the needs of today’s learners and the demands of our information age economy, we have a problem. If we have a system that does not fit our needs anymore, we must begin thinking about how to transform the educational system we have.
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28 Jul 09
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25 Jul 09
Kathleen NCarroll, T. G. (2000). If we didn't have the schools we have today,\nwould we create the schools we have today? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 1 (1). Available: http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss1/currentissues/general/article1.htm
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20 Jul 09
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16 Jul 09
Heidi GableIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?
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12 Jul 09
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11 Jul 09
Mark Hinesgreat article form 2001 from Thomas Caroll asking the question "If we didn't have today's schools, would we crate today's schools?
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Add Sticky Notehe question in the title of this article is a trick question, because I want readers to really think about it. “If we didn’t have today’s schools, would we create today’s
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Add Sticky Note(A significant part of the expert learner’s role will be organizing and managing the collaborative learning community.)
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of course, the wonderful thing about this is that this is age-independent - it allows even a very young learner an opportunity to be the expert - we rarely enable this kind of human potential in schools.
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In most of those schools, she heard complaints from the principals and from the teachers that the open space model did not work. Teachers who were interviewed in the article said things like, “When I am trying to lecture to my students, I can’t keep control of the class, because they are distracted by lectures and noise from the other teachers and their students. My students listen in on what the other teachers are saying or doing with their students, and they have a lot of ways to send messages to the other students. It doesn’t work. I just can’t teach my class in an open space.”
However, at one school, the principal said, “This is great. It works really well for us. Our teachers have organized themselves into teams. We have cross-age classes and we have team projects across our subjects. Our teachers and students can move around and reconfigure themselves any time they want to work on a new task together. We have some older students tutoring younger students. This is a great school, and we are very happy with it.”
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what a contrast between these two views on what to do with learners in an open environment. The big shift will have to be re-tolling teacher's mindsets about how to teach in these settings. Folks like High tech High and the MET have given up expecting to hire the right kind of teachers, and instead have opened their own schools of education to get teachers to develop the correct pedagogy and philosophy.
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Add Sticky NoteSo these are the possibilities. They begin when each one of us takes a step toward preparing educators who can become expert learners in a networked learning community. Pierre Boulez said recently, “The future is the present slightly modified.” Each one of you can help us take a step forward into the future. The choice is yours. We have the technology. We have the knowledge. We have the support. Define your vision and make it happen.
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the past 8 years of tech development have moved us even further along this proposition. Although there is a lot of hand wringing and "schools and teachers are resistant to change" the movements to charters, new school models, online education that works (check the research on this) and new models for schools indicate the disruptive wave (Christensen, Horn et el) are coming sooon!
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10 Jul 09
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08 Jul 09
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“If We Didn’t Have Today’s Schools, Would We Create Today’s Schools?”
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07 Jul 09
Darren KuropatwaIf we didn't have the schools we have today,
would we create the schools we have today?education technology change learning teaching leadership research design article
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05 Jul 09
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02 Jul 09
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Their job will not be to teach – but to help others learn,
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They are a great hybrid technology for now. We are using them to make the transition, but imagine if I walked into that surgery room with a laptop computer and said, “I have a laptop computer here with business applications on it, and it will revolutionize the way you practice surgery.” They would throw me right out of there.
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Web 2.0 Applications are the beginning of this change I think. Let the users decide what they need and how they want to use it but it's got to be collaborative in nature!
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Our traditional K-12 schools have rarely made room for adults and young people to collaboratively contribute to each other’s learning, or to the development of new knowledge on a sustained basis. But our information age economy demands this intergenerational, collaborative construction of knowledge, and our schools will fail to develop young people who can be productive citizens in this economy if they do not support this mode of learning.
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As we collaboratively work together in a learning community, we can complement each other’s knowledge and skills. In a networked learning community, we can greatly accelerate and augment the learning of all members by linking them with other learners in collaborative efforts organized by expert learners.
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In a networked learning community, modern communication and information technologies can enable us to construct knowledge and skills at a faster rate and at a higher level, because we can be connected with more learners, more resources and experiences, and more experiments and learning opportunities than ever before.
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The Virtual High School organized by the Concord Consortium [ http://vhs.concord.org ] is becoming another well-known example. Teachers (as expert learners) located in different high schools around the country are using network connectivity to collaborate, with the help of experienced facilitators, to design and offer new Internet netcourses. Each VHS school provides a part-time coordinator, who acts as liaison between students and the VHS teachers. The Concord Consortium provides professional development, netcourse expertise, and curriculum development support to the collaborating teachers, who are offering over 200 courses in over 350 schools in 30 states and 6 foreign countries. Student participation is expected to reach 4,000 this year.
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Once we move the teacher—as an expert learner—into the learning activity we begin modeling the learning process with the students. They are all learning together. And as I have said, once we reach this point, it’s not useful to distinguish between students and teachers, because they are all learning. Who is teaching and who is learning? They are all learning.
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chools resist change, because they are designed to resist change. They are cultural organizations, and cultural organizations are not supposed to change. Cultures are designed to preserve existing solutions to problems—considerable social and economic capital goes into developing culturally valued solutions to problems and change is risky. Stability reduces risk—“change is bad”—and our schools have been designed to focus on the knowledge transmission mode of learning.
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we continued to prepare most teachers as if the only way to teach is using the solo, stand alone, self-contained, isolated classroom model—the open space concept could not work. That was how those young and mid-career teachers were prepared to teach. They believed they were doing what was expected of them as teachers and that open space thwarted their teaching efforts. They were not prepared to do anything different. That’s our responsibility—and we will get the same result if we introduce modern learning technologies in our schools but do not prepare teachers to work in this new learning environment. If we want to take advantage of these new technologies and the billions we are investing in equipment for our schools, we have to prepare teachers very differently than we have in the past. We have to change our own model of teaching and instruction in higher education. (See Schlechty, 1990.)
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Any organization that adopts a new technology without significant organizational change is doomed to failure. You have to change the organization. You cannot just add the technology. You have to actively work on changing the roles of the teachers, the roles of the students, the roles of the parents, and the roles of the administrators, and start to work toward building new relationships and new structures, or you will be disappointed with the results.
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interactive communication technologies give power to the learning revolution.
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The learning revolution is about constructivist learning, and these new communication and information technologies allow us to facilitate constructive learning in ways that we could never do before. They are becoming cognitive amplifiers that will accelerate learning and the development of new knowledge in the same ways that machines accelerated production during the industrial revolution.
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work is learning . Work in the workplace is learning. Work in the larger community surrounding the schools is about learning every day.
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workers
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must learn in the workplace and in the home to use these tools to improve their knowledge, skills, and productivity.
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learning communities have no boundaries . In a networked learning community, schools and classrooms will simply become nodes in a larger learning environment. The boundaries of the schools and classrooms with their fixed curriculum and dated texts are no longer going to limit learning.
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An increasing number of parents are discovering that they can make more powerful learning opportunities available to their children in the home than they can in the schools, and unless the schools change, more parents will collaborate to construct alternative learning opportunities with these technologies. Because work is learning, the home is a work and learning place, and learning communities have no boundaries, schools are going to be marginalized as learning environments if they do not change dramatically.
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Kids come into the schools recognizing that they have more powerful learning opportunities available out of school than they have in school.
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Any time we put teachers and students in predefined courses with a linear design, bound by dated texts, credit hours and static tests of factual recall, we are still on a wooden sailing ship. What we are moving toward is authentic, long-term projects, asynchronous learning, knowledge-work and nonlinear learning. “Just-in-time,” consumable information used for specific purposes, instead of “just-in-case” facts packed into our heads at an early age that few of us can recall.
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The web, as a networked learning environment, linking learning centers, anytime, anywhere is what we are moving to. The tools will change—textbooks, blackboards, and business computers will fade from use. These business computers are going to have to change.
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We are going to move from static, text-driven content in a fixed curriculum to learning content that is constructed by the learners. Our former teachers and their students—these new expert learners and their novice learners—collaboratively working in these networked learning communities will construct this content.
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22 Jun 09
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16 Jun 09
Eileen SchroederArticle by Thomas Carroll: "We must recognize that schools and classrooms are becoming nodes in networked learning communities. We must begin to think about how to organize learning in networked communities and not limit learning within the boundaries
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10 Jun 09
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Yes. Computers can be used to improve schools.
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Yes. Computers can be used to improve schools.
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09 Jun 09
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08 Jun 09
Larry RosbachIf we didn't have the schools we have today,
would we create the schools we have today? -
07 Jun 09
Barbara Lindseyexpert learners (we call them teachers, educators, scientists, and researchers today) are going to be recognized for their ability to learn and help others learn, as they continue to construct new knowledge and develop their own expertise.
education technology change 21stcentury actfl09 mafla09 blended learning
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There is no way for the faculty or teachers to collaboratively learn and construct new knowledge in this system—no way for them to know whether the knowledge that might have been acquired by the student teacher is actually the knowledge the student teacher then conveys as a teacher to the K-12 students. Few, if any, of the educators know anything about what the K-12 students might be doing with any of the knowledge they may have acquired after they leave the K-12 classroom. This is a linear, fragmented teaching approach—the epitome of the factory-era assembly line approach to teaching and learning—which defeats any opportunity for collaborative learning or feedback across the various levels of teaching and teacher preparation.
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New learning teams are emerging, which consist of college faculty, the teacher candidates, and the in-service teachers. The high school students themselves are sometimes members of these teams, developing new applications of technology. They are becoming learning communities, “communities of practice,” as some would call it. And in these learning communities, the distinctions between “teacher” and “student” no longer serve us well. That is why I believe education is rapidly moving toward new learning environments that will have no teachers or students—just learners with different levels and areas of expertise collaboratively constructing new knowledge.
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chools resist change, because they are designed to resist change. They are cultural organizations, and cultural organizations are not supposed to change. Cultures are designed to preserve existing solutions to problems—considerable social and economic capital goes into developing culturally valued solutions to problems and change is risky. Stability reduces risk—“change is bad”—and our schools have been designed to focus on the knowledge transmission mode of learning.
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Add Sticky NoteThis is just what many teachers and faculty members are saying, “We don’t have time for this. We are good teachers, and we can continue to serve our students well with the instructional strategies we have always used. Besides, with the time demands on us, we don’t have time to learn this new technology. As good teachers, we are doing well with our students and we don’t need to go through this transition.”
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Exactly the response I hear again and again....
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The learning revolution is about constructivist learning, and these new communication and information technologies allow us to facilitate constructive learning in ways that we could never do before. They are becoming cognitive amplifiers that will accelerate learning and the development of new knowledge in the same ways that machines accelerated production during the industrial revolution.
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The third reason schools will be driven to change is that we have now reached a point where work is learning . Work in the workplace is learning. Work in the larger community surrounding the schools is about learning every day. It's not just about putting bolts on things anymore.
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The fourth force is that learning communities have no boundaries . In a networked learning community, schools and classrooms will simply become nodes in a larger learning environment.
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The fifth factor affecting schools is that the home is becoming a learning place .
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The final force driving change in schools is kid power.
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06 Jun 09
David JakesIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today? via WillRich
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27 May 09
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24 May 09
roberto marcolinToday’s model of schooling is to bring the learner to the knowledge—tomorrow we will bring the knowledge to the learners. We must recognize that schools and classrooms are becoming nodes in networked learning communities. We must begin to think about how
Today’s model of schooling is to bring the learner to the
knowledge—tomorrow we will bring the knowledge to the learners. We must
recognize that schools and classrooms are becoming nodes in networked
learning communities. We must begin to think about how -
23 May 09
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21 May 09
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If a surgeon from the 1800s walked into an operating room today where arthroscopic surgery was being performed, could that surgeon step in and perform the surgery?
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Add Sticky NoteMost of what we are doing with computers is comparable to putting steam engines in wooden sailing ships.
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This is a very nice metaphor for what is going on in today's classrooms.
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Most of what we are doing with computers is comparable to putting steam engines in wooden sailing ships.
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20 May 09
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Barbara CohenIf we didn't have the schools we have today, would we create the schools we have today?
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18 May 09
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eally think about it. “If we didn’t have today’s schools,
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Donna DesRochesworth reading - noting and adding to the annotations on the page
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17 May 09
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Invention and knowledge generation . The third dimension of a learning community is “invention” and knowledge generation. In this mode, young and old learn to collaboratively construct new knowledge. Through this collaborative learning, young and old join forces to create the future. The community values innovation, and Change is Good . Our traditional K-12 schools have rarely made room for adults and young people to collaboratively contribute to each other’s learning, or to the development of new knowledge on a sustained basis. But our information age economy demands this intergenerational, collaborative construction of knowledge, and our schools will fail to develop young people who can be productive citizens in this economy if they do not support this mode of learning.
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Change Is Inevitable
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Jenny LittleWe have a unique opportunity in education today. Massive funds are pouring into the technology infrastructure of K-12 schools. It is estimated that $7 billion a year is being spent to equip schools with infrastructure, networking activities, and hardware.
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Michael WackerThe investment of resources on this scale is comparable to the space program. The process of building this infrastructure is similar to launching a rocket in education. Now that we have launched that rocket, we must learn to fly. That may seem backwards,
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16 May 09
Ty YostIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?
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The Virtual High School
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bookminder dIn the networked learning communities of the future, expert
learners (we call them teachers, educators, scientists, and researchers
today) are going to be recognized for their ability to learn and help
others learn, as they continue to construct new knarticle schools technology learning research future future_of_education 21c teaching for:audreynvsd
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H. HampsonIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?
education technology research children school learning design change
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15 May 09
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Zac EarlyToday’s model of schooling is to bring the learner to the knowledge—tomorrow we will bring the knowledge to the learners. We must recognize that schools and classrooms are becoming nodes in networked learning communities. We must begin to think about how
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Dr. Camille DempseyContemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education
journals articles_tech_teachers technology_teacher_education
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Brian KuhnIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?
21stcentury ISDEPT architecture article building change design education journal leadership learning research schools technology DesignTeam SD43
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Add Sticky NoteBut most schools and classrooms will no longer be the central learning hubs they are today. Today’s model of schooling is to bring the learner to the knowledge—tomorrow we will bring the knowledge to the learners. We must recognize that schools and classrooms are becoming nodes in networked learning communities. We must begin to think about how to organize learning in networked communities and not limit learning within the boundaries of classrooms and school buildings—which would be to limit our thinking to what has been possible in the past in a single school or node.
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This statement really needs to be foundational in school construction project design and planning work. We need to completely rethink how schools are designed. A 100 year old design is not the right design to support the learning community model described here.
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Add Sticky NoteThe new and more powerful opportunity available to educators today is to use these technologies to help individuals collaboratively construct networked learning communities that will accelerate and augment the community’s learning, as well as each individual’s learning.
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I wonder how this and other ideas here transfer to each level (eg, elementary, middle, secondary)? These statements aren't differentiated for age appropriateness. I'd like to see that fleshed out.
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Add Sticky NoteWe need to get rid of the circle and enable them to be learners in an open learning environment (see Figure 5).
One of the large “L’s” in the diagram is the expert learner-
This is transformational! I hear from principals all the time that teachers are uncomfortable using technology in front of their students... the teachers want to become proficient with technology before using it in class... in this model, they are learners alongside their students and each has their own domain knowledge and expertise to offer to the community. I like it!
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The image and what it implies gets the to heart of what needs to change to save education - in the day 2 keynote of NECC09, the debate on bricks or mortar, good or bad, ended up being a somewhat agreement that the problem isn't B&M - it is what happens in them - this is the best, research evidenced solution, and technology needs to play a critical role to support it.
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Add Sticky NoteDid the open space concept fail, or did we fail to prepare teachers who could teach in an open space model? We changed the physical space in those buildings, but because we continued to prepare most teachers as if the only way to teach is using the solo, stand alone, self-contained, isolated classroom model—the open space concept could not work
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This is a key point. A failed school design does not mean the design is wrong. How the learning community is implemented within the physical space is absolutely key to success. The real challenge is shifting the culture of teaching from a traditional model to a networked learning community model.
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Add Sticky Notewe have to prepare teachers very differently than we have in the past
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How do we do that with teacher unions that are often resistent to change. "very differently" in this context is quite scary for traditionalists.
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Add Sticky NoteAny organization that adopts a new technology without significant organizational change is doomed to failure. You have to change the organization. You cannot just add the technology
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This is profound. For too many years we've added technology to schools and classrooms and continued with the same general model of teaching and learning. We use words like "enhance learning with technology" when we should be saying "transform learning through the use of technology". Technology projects are organizational change projects which implies transformation.
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Dean ShareskiAnnotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.citejournal.org%2Fvol1%2Fiss1%2Fcurrentissues%2Fgeneral%2Farticle1.htm
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Add Sticky NoteWe have to start preparing teachers differently. If we are going to continue preparing educators to work as solo, stand-alone teachers in self-contained, isolated classrooms, we are going to perpetuate the schools we have toda
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This is exactly the focus on my course at the University of Regina. My disclaimer to my students is that they have grown up in a system that for the most part, worked for them. It's going to be hard for them to change as well.
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Add Sticky NoteThen I ask everyone who uses a touchtone phone to raise their hands again. “How many of you with your hands up have made the decision to use this technology because of a research article that you read?” This is the technology we use to communicate with each other every day, and no one can cite an article on its effectiveness? I have done this at a lot of meetings, and I still have not found anybody who can give me a convincing research article or evaluation study that says using telephones is a good thing to do. And, actually, I can tell you from my own inquiry into this, having worked with the telecommunications industry, that there is no research to support what you are doing. It’s not there. Now that you know that there is no research to support what you are doing, how many of you will get rid of your phones?
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A great response to the arguement about whether or not technology improves learning.
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Add Sticky NoteWe should stop calling these individuals “teachers” and “students” and start calling them “learners” instead. More than just a change of names, it is a change to a fundamentally different role. It is very different to be a “learner” than to be a “student” or a “teacher.”
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How do we get current teachers to accept this change?
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Many of the people in the country who know the most about how to use this technology effectively in K-12 schools are the master teachers—whom I would call expert learners—in the K-12 schools, and we have a lot to learn from them.
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Elysio SoaresIf we didn't have the schools we have today, would we create the schools we have today? by Thomas G. Carroll, U.S. Dept. of Education (2000)
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Silvia Rosenthal TolisanoEveryone plays an active role in a networked learning community, contributing to the community’s construction of knowledge as its members collaborate to address problems (whether the goal is learning to read or learning to fly a rocket to the moon). In
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Add Sticky NoteIf we want schools to be different, we must start today to prepare teachers differently… si gnificantly differently.
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Changing before teachers enter the system - but my thought is that is has to be holistic, a system redesign
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Mary Ann,
I agree that sending "changed" teachers out into schools that are unchanged would be a dangerous thing to do.
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These bodies of knowledge are passed on as valued cultural wealth
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ommunity is often focused on applied learning, in which existing knowledge and understandings are revised through experience.
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Add Sticky Notethey model learning through collaboration to solve problems and achieve goals they have in common.
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mentorships, apprenticeships, models have existed - but question - I can see this with older kids, what about younger how does that look?
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Add Sticky NoteA learning community learns as a community—unlike a community of learners in which each individual is engaged in his or her own learning.
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Wow
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I hadn't really thought about this distinction before.
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Ben LoueyIf We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?
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Will RichardsonToday’s model of schooling is to bring the learner to the knowledge—tomorrow we will bring the knowledge to the learners. We must recognize that schools and classrooms are becoming nodes in networked learning communities. We must begin to think about
network_literacy shifts schools 3rdedition quoteable must_read
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Add Sticky NoteAnd the trick is, if you wouldn’t create today’s schools, what are you doing about it? If we continue to prepare teachers as we have always prepared them, we are going to continue to recreate the schools we have always had.
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Too true. This is a huge professional development undertaking.
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Papert (1996) has suggested that another way to think about this question is to ask, “If the changes in education over the last 100 years had been as dramatic as the changes in medicine over that time, what would our schools look like today?”
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Today’s model of schooling is to bring the learner to the knowledge—tomorrow we will bring the knowledge to the learners. We must recognize that schools and classrooms are becoming nodes in networked learning communities. We must begin to think about how to organize learning in networked communities and not limit learning within the boundaries of classrooms and school buildings—which would be to limit our thinking to what has been possible in the past in a single school or node.
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Add Sticky NoteA Networked Learning Community is constructed as its members collaborate to achieve common goals, learning together as they develop solutions for problems they are addressing in common. As the learning community grows, the members of the community develop new knowledge and skills through their participation and contributions. Everyone becomes a learner in a Networked Learning Community, and the distinctions between students and teachers fade away.
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That part about the distinctions between students and teachers fading away is a big, big shift for most. This is where the idea of Learning First, Teaching Second comes in.
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Teachers as learners, modeling a passion for learning, sharing enthusiasm, as well as strategies for learning
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The first dimension is knowledge “transmission” and conservation. In this learning mode, the community focuses its resources on ensuring that the young learn from the old.
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The second dimension of a learning community is knowledge “adaptation.” In this mode, traditions and existing knowledge are modified to accommodate new developments. The old often learn from the young (as they do when older generations in immigrant families learn from their children, who adapt quickly to new cultural traditions). Old knowledge blends with new. The community values progress and accepts that Change is Necessary . The community is often focused on applied learning, in which existing knowledge and understandings are revised through experience.
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Add Sticky NoteThe third dimension of a learning community is “invention” and knowledge generation. In this mode, young and old learn to collaboratively construct new knowledge.
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This is huge. "Collaborativly construct new knowledge."
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Through this collaborative learning, young and old join forces to create the future. The community values innovation, and Change is Good .
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But our information age economy demands this intergenerational, collaborative construction of knowledge, and our schools will fail to develop young people who can be productive citizens in this economy if they do not support this mode of learning.
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If you are an experienced learner in the community—practiced at solving problems—you have a role to play helping others to learn. You may bring past knowledge and experience, and you will learn more as you help them learn.
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If you are a young person or a novice at learning in a particular field, you still have a role to play as you construct your own knowledge and understanding, and through that process contribute new insights, experiences, and creations that enhance the learning of others in the community.
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Add Sticky NoteIn the networked learning communities of the future, expert learners (we call them teachers, educators, scientists, and researchers today) are going to be recognized for their ability to learn and help others learn, as they continue to construct new knowledge and develop their own expertise.
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This is such a great statement. Will be recognized for their ability to learn and help others learn.
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"expert learners" That's what I"m talkin' 'bout! ;)
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This is directly to the point. "Expert learners" help other learners build and increase their learning edgility (see edgility.net) and enter a space to connect with their passions.
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Their job will not be to teach – but to help others learn, as they model learning through collaboration to solve problems and achieve goals they have in common. (A significant part of the expert learner’s role will be organizing and managing the collaborative learning community.)
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Add Sticky NoteIn a networked learning community, we will have “schools” that are nodes in a larger learning environment, and in those schools there will be no teachers and no students– just learners .
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Wow.
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Add Sticky NoteAs we begin this transformation, it is important to note that a networked learning community is not a community of learners. A learning community learns as a community—unlike a community of learners in which each individual is engaged in his or her own learning.
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Very true.
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Add Sticky NoteThe new and more powerful opportunity available to educators today is to use these technologies to help individuals collaboratively construct networked learning communities that will accelerate and augment the community’s learning, as well as each individual’s learning.
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I struggle with how this networked learning becomes tangible. What does it look like for the group as opposed to the individual?
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This can only be an effective mode of education when the content is assumed to consist of static or immutable facts, and when our expectation is that all learners need to acquire the same facts at the same time. This is the transmission and knowledge conservation learning mode.
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Once we move the teacher—as an expert learner—into the learning activity we begin modeling the learning process with the students. They are all learning together. And as I have said, once we reach this point, it’s not useful to distinguish between students and teachers, because they are all learning.
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Trying to introduce new technologies into schools without these changes would be similar to efforts in the sailing industry during the 1800s, when steam engines were installed in wooden sailing ships.
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The sailing industry never got the true benefits of steam power until they reached the constructive transformation. They altered the entire design of ships. They took down the masts, got rid of the sails, changed the whole configuration of the ship, and made it of steel. They changed the design, because to work effectively, sailing ships need a very different hull shape than steam driven ships. Once they made this transformation, and once they prepared the sailors to navigate with these new vessels, they achieved tremendous benefits from the new technology.
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In our schools, we are only beginning to think about how to change our learning models with these modern technologies. Most of what we are doing with computers is comparable to putting steam engines in wooden sailing ships.
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Add Sticky NoteBut these transitional phases are important steps toward using these transformational technologies for improved learning.
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This is what I want to say to Gary Stager. This is a process. VIrtually nothing acheives excellence on the first try.
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Add Sticky NoteWe will not get out of our wooden ship schools until we use communication technologies for two-way interactivity that allows us to collaboratively construct the learning experience and new knowledge.
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I wonder how many people still don't understand this.
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Add Sticky NoteSince we have all seen that schools have the power to resist change, why do I think these technologies will give us the power to transform education? I think there are a number of reasons, similar to the forces that lead us all to use phones whether we have the research to support that use or not. These forces are going to drive changes in education whether we are ready for them or not.
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Sounds like Shirky.
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Add Sticky NoteThe web is displacing CDs and other fixed content approaches because it supports interactive communication and collaborative construction of knowledge. This is a force that schools cannot resist. The Web gives learners access to powerful learning opportunities anytime and anywhere. Learners have open access to this new learning tool, whether the schools are ready or not.
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This is depressing. We're making the same argument today.
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The second factor to consider is that these interactive communication technologies give power to the learning revolution.
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The learning revolution is about constructivist learning, and these new communication and information technologies allow us to facilitate constructive learning in ways that we could never do before. They are becoming cognitive amplifiers that will accelerate learning and the development of new knowledge in the same ways that machines accelerated production during the industrial revolution.
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The third reason schools will be driven to change is that we have now reached a point where work is learning . Work in the workplace is learning.
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The fourth force is that learning communities have no boundaries . In a networked learning community, schools and classrooms will simply become nodes in a larger learning environment. The boundaries of the schools and classrooms with their fixed curriculum and dated texts are no longer going to limit learning.
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An increasing number of parents are discovering that they can make more powerful learning opportunities available to their children in the home than they can in the schools, and unless the schools change, more parents will collaborate to construct alternative learning opportunities with these technologies.
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First, the purpose of education will move from being curriculum driven to being learning centered.
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It will be driven by knowledge work in a networked learning community.
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Add Sticky NoteThe teacher will become an expert learner organizing and leading others in networked learning communities.
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To me, this is the money quote. Helping kids to grow their own personal learning networks in safe, effective and ethical ways.
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Any time we put teachers and students in predefined courses with a linear design, bound by dated texts, credit hours and static tests of factual recall, we are still on a wooden sailing ship. What we are moving toward is authentic, long-term projects, asynchronous learning, knowledge-work and nonlinear learning. “Just-in-time,” consumable information used for specific purposes, instead of “just-in-case” facts packed into our heads at an early age that few of us can recall.
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They are learning to access and use knowledge when and where they need it.
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Add Sticky NoteAssessment will be embedded on an ongoing basis in electronic learning activities and documented in digital portfolios. We will move from a standard, one-size-fits-all curriculum to mass customization in education. We are already seeing this in other industries—the automobile industry, the clothing industry. You can go on-line now and buy clothes that are custom-made to your style, shape, and dimensions. It is called mass customization, and we are going to have education that follows that model. These modern learning technologies give us for the first time the power to truly individualize learning.
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I agree. And this is something that we don't talk about enough. Everything is customized for us these days...except learning.
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Public Stiky Notes
I agree that sending "changed" teachers out into schools that are unchanged would be a dangerous thing to do.
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