Six minutes that will make you think again about what you assumed you already knew…
Archive for February, 2009
Lost in [cyber]Space YouTube Video…
February 23rd, 2009
Big Difference Between Industrial and Technological Revolutions
February 23rd, 2009What is the future of education in a wireless, gizmo-laden, gadget-rich world? It’s interesting that when machination surged during the industrial revolution, that bigger was better and stronger. To emulate human strength, machines got bigger and more powerful. However, just the opposite is occurring in the technological revolution. Since brain-power is being emulated, innovations trend smaller and smaller.
The false assumption of many is that there will be physical devices outside the body at all but for » More: Big Difference Between Industrial and Technological Revolutions
Technology in Education…
February 23rd, 2009The challenges for widespread incorporation of telenetworked classrooms remain the same with the top 3 being funding, bandwidth, and hardware.
The future of education is trending toward 3D virtual environments accessed via the Internet and such technology requires funding. However, it may be that the very technology we need reduces other hard costs that would no longer be needed and the net effect may be positive regardless. » More: Technology in Education…
Distance Education Has A Long History…
February 21st, 2009TV has been ‘distance’ teaching our children for years. Hollywood never demanded a commitment nor required any minimal skill level on the part of its audience. My students have the latest new song memorized but don’t know their multiplication tables. Hmm… Disconnect? Relevancy? Interest? Stimulating? What will engage young minds today??
Who’s Got the Ball?
February 21st, 2009Hey the Government wants to take over the banking business. Maybe Banking will become as effective and streamlined as education? 
All kidding aside, the technology trends are set to recalibrate the entire institution of education as we’ve known it. Wake up and smell the bandwidth, world. It’s no longer a top-down hierarchical structure but a flat earth network of you’s and me’s. They can play the Quarterback sneak only so long. Eventually everyone will realize they don’t have the ball any longer.
Lifelong Learning for Free…
February 21st, 2009Here’s the REAL question… when university lectures and their related domains of knowledge are available for free
This is how education as an institution will change. Credits are given for degrees to be obtained which ensures ‘ownership’ and control of education as an institution. Opensource is eliminating the ability of any one enterprise to corner the market so-to-speak. Crazy, huh?
Same with Open Commons licensing. Not only does it encourage information available for free; it precludes the beneficiaries of that information from selling it on the back-end. The big publishers, software developers like IBM, and others are only beginning to see the ramifications and are fighting to gain back control (but it may be too late). And the playing field is leveled once more.
Future Shock Revisited…
February 10th, 2009It’s only the transitory generation that finds confusion to be stressful. Actually, the next generation we are educating finds predictability stressful while they find confusion exhilarating. The next generation of teachers will probably handle the mayhem better than we do. Not only will they not need a map, they won’t WANT one.
The Privilege Gap…
February 7th, 2009This culture of uncertainty is facing an unknown future. They will retire in 2065. None of us knows “what” they need to know so we must teach them “how” to be life-long learners and how to adapt and survive the fast paced continuous changes they will forever face. Therefore, the present dilemma of some being haves and others being have-nots, is not about resolution so much as about utilization to teach the adaptation skills needed. What will change? Do we seriously believe everyone will be equal one day? Preposterous. We may have been created equal but we each face our own obstacles, the overcoming of which strengthens us to be the unique contribution to the whole for which we are destined.
Do we seek equality or balance?
February 7th, 2009Societies function like organisms because they are made up of living beings. Organisms seek balance not equality. Nature can be a bit ruthless in this regard.
Pedagogical Relativism…
February 7th, 2009A question was asked in my Educational Technology class: Why not use a variety of theories as a basis for teaching?
My response to that is to say that it seems the theories are not compatible with each other. Theories of learning are based on the hypothesis that humans learn best in one way or another. A hundred years ago it was Behaviorism. Then in the early part of the 20th century it was cognitivism. Today it is constructivism.
My experience at the grade school level is interesting in that teachers all agree constructive learning is ideal but many feel pressed for the necessary time to build such lesson plans and so resort to cognitive approaches such as lecturing and if things get out of hand, step back even farther to some behaviorist approach to consequence and/or reward the students.
What this country really needs is a paradigm shift in our educational philosophy. At this rate, China, India, and Russia will engineer the future and Americans will stock the shelves.
