The videos on the Week 1 - Blog Posting #2 are some of the most powerful messages about education that I have heard in a long time. To know that there are those out there who understand what the American education system needs, the way that these people who have created these videos understand, gives me hope for the future. They also send a clear message to teachers, if teachers don’t change the way we are teaching and reaching today’s digital learners, we face the worst plague to hit this country since the black plague. We will face the plague of a generation of leaders without the skills to make good decisions. We must reach into these new learners’ worlds to guide them through the maze of information and help them to turn the technology that they play with, into tools that they learn with. We can no longer pretend that education has not changed.. It is time to open your eyes and see the new world that is everywhere. Welcome to the www (whatever, whenever, wherever) of learning. The big question to be answered is if teachers must change, then what should they change into. If education must change, what should it change into?
I heard two things in my research this week that make since to me, the first one was made by Ken Robinson in the video from TED. (Video posted to http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html) In this video Robinson says, “we must see are creative capacities for the richness they are and see our children for the hope that they are”. He says our education system has strip mined our mind for a particular commodity, that of logic and reason. As a science teacher, believe me I understand the place for logic and reason, but I agree that logic and reason alone will not due. We must have the creative thinking that comes from children free of the standardize test world of today schools. This brings me two the second thing that I heard this week that struck me as profound, this time it was said by Yong Zhao, in a video titled, “No Child Left Behind and Global Competitiveness”. (Video posted to http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/21stcenturyeducation/films/film-yong-zhao.html)
Today’s students are passionate about technology. They are the digital natives. If we are to reach these digital natives we must come to them on their terms and in their world. We need to stop trying to control our children and start trying to educate our children.
Check out this great video that I found on the students of today’s classroom.
Produced and Directed by Ken Ellis posted on http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-project-overview-video
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