Archive for the ‘technology’ category

Here’s a Thought: Let’s Banish Critical Thinking

February 4th, 2010

I’ve been thinking about thinking lately, and I’ve had it with critical thinking. Note the italics. I’ve had it with the term critical thinking, not the actual practice. From a recent immersion in thinking-related research, I’ve concluded that critical thinking is like the weather: everybody talks about it but few do anything about it.

No arena bandies the term about as widely as education. Few conferences fail to include at least one session devoted to the topic, and book vendors at these events hawk the latest tomes dedicated to it. Educators seem to agree on the need for students to learn to think critically, but that seems to be the end of their consensus. Ask three different educators for their definition of critical thinking and you’re likely to get at least four different ideas, and at least half of them will include a nod to Bloom’s Taxonomy. Somewhere in our history, many of us were convinced that if our questioning climbed a ladder and we called on students whose names we wrote on popsicle sticks and pulled randomly from a styrofoam cup, we were teaching students critical thinking.

Because of the confusion all these preconceived notions create, I propose that we stop talking about critical thinking and instead just think about thinking. To that end, I’ve started referencing a different model. Imagine thinking as a target. As any marksman knows, the center of the target is where you aim if you want the best result. However, though the center of this target represents the ultimate goal, the outer circles are not without value. Let’s examine the first of these outer circles: memorize.

Wait, don’t stop reading! I know memorizing lacks the flash and appeal of the target’s other circles, but our brains do indeed memorize information, sometimes without our consent. For example, I know every lyric to the 70’s classic but somewhat mind-numbing “Funkytown.” I never intentionally sat down and used flash cards to learn the lyrics. They just got stuck in my head, which is one way to define memorizing. We memorize when things get stuck in our heads, on purpose or otherwise.

When educators talk about memorizing, it’s usually with a scowl on their faces and the taste of battery acid on their tongues. Memorizing is so beneath us. We don’t have students memorize anything. Everything we teach is meaningful. It’s all the others—teachers who teach other disciplines—who make students memorize unnecessary information. We’re above such an approach. We climb questioning ladders and pull popsicle sticks, for pete’s sake!

But let’s be honest. Despite the fact that most everything factual can now be found quickly via technology, some information still possesses its greatest value when it’s memorized. At its best, memorizing enables efficiency in thinking and acting. For example, knowing how to spell the words critical and thinking saved me plenty of time in developing this post. If I didn’t know instantly how to spell most of the words I use in writing, I’d probably have far less to say. (I know what you’re thinking: that’d be a bad thing?) Can you imagine trying to compose any significant passage of writing if you had to stop and check your wireless device for the correct spelling of every word?

I once had an experience that provides a picture of what this might be like. My wife and I love going to the theater for live performances. One time, just before the curtain was raised on a new drama, the announcer spoke via the public address system: “Today the role of Countess Calista will be played by Jane Smith, script in hand.” Apparently the lead actress and her understudy were unavailable. Sure enough, Ms. Smith waltzed onto stage with “script in hand,” and read her lines throughout the performance. It was disjointed and distracting. So much so that I can’t even remember the name of play, let alone what it was about. Memorizing has its place, even when technology that can provide the next line or correct spelling exists.

However, at its worse, memorization becomes merely testable material that lacks any use beyond the end of an instructional unit. With such material, its measurability is often its sole benefit, and it’s a benefit for the teacher not the student. Unfortunately it seems that many schools would rather aim for this outermost circle, decreasing the likelihood of hitting any part of the thinking target. But if we aim for and even hit this outermost circle, we have problems. Memorizing, while valuable when engaged selectively, has its limits.

First, students who only memorize remain subject to dogma’s sway. Parroting is evidence of memorizing, and a student who has highly developed memorizing capacity without equally developed processing abilities will tend to repeat the ideas of others, often without understanding.

Second and relatedly, students only equipped to memorize tend to accept without question. Such individuals tend to take the words that fall from the mouths of people they like and repeat them whether they are true or not. Since they lack the ability to process the ideas the words represent, accepting and repeating those words become the individual’s way of “thinking.”

Third, individuals who rely solely on memorizing as thinking cannot entertain or even understand conflicting ideas. That which they’ve memorized becomes their sole reference, so anything new must conform with the previously memorized information.

In short, merely memorizing severely limits an individual. So, while hitting the outermost circle represents one element of mental activity, always aiming there produces individuals I don’t think most schools and teachers would claim as their intended outcome. We need to consider the inner circles (and we will in future posts) and actually teach students the cognitive skills associated with them. Popsicle sticks and questioning variety alone won’t get us there.

Let’s think about thinking—teaching it, increasing it, developing students who actually can do it—but let’s leave our confusing dance with critical thinking behind.

Top Image: ‘la linea della vita, nichilismo’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/32347849@N08/3269623518

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Posted in Bloom's Taxonomy, critical thinking, Education, evaluate, learn, learning, memorize, reason, target, technology

Can "The Least Of Us" Disrupt and Change Education for "The Rest Of Us?"

October 3rd, 2009

Disruption is a buzzword in education these days. This is a story about disruption. What follows may not happen, but then again, it might.

Education is highly resistant to change. Education has not fundamentally changed in over a 100 years. Many in my Personal Learning Network believe that public education will not change. If public education in this county will not change on its own, how can disruption become a factor and where will the source of this disruption come from?

Matt Mason insightfully points out in his book The Pirate’s Dilemma that youth movements are a source of social change. Youth movements through the years have brought Do-It-Yourself attitudes from punk rock. The youth movements have brought remixing music, video, video games, etc, forcing a reexamination of our copyright laws. Street artists challenge the meaning of open spaces and advertising. Rap brings voice to the disinfected. Matt points out that history has proven time and time again that youth movements have the potential to enact social change. They disrupt.

The question is where will disruption come from and who will bring it to education.

Matt Mason notes in his book that there are, “…currently 1.5 billion ten-to twenty-four-year-olds on Earth, and 86 percent of them live in a developing country.”

Developing countries are ripe for disruption because they provide the gaps where disruption can easily occur.

“While the U.N. Research Institute estimates that the richest 2 percent of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, a report from the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the United Nations University says that the poorer half of the world’s population owns barely 1 percent of the global wealth.”

The worlds poor does not have material wealth, but they do have minds and a desire to learn. The world’s poor posses a desire for knowledge and self-improvement that is equal to the wealthy. A “digital bridge” is slowly spanning the gaps between the rich and poor in developing countries.

“Efforts are being made to close the digital divide between the developed and the developing world. Open-source education, $100 laptops, and free, decentralized WiFi are a great start.”

But they are just a start. The key might lie in WiFi and Internet access.

“A report on Internet readiness rankings by the Economist Intelligence Unit in April 2007 shows that Asian and African nations are catching up with big Net users in the West.”

In other words, the poor are getting wired up and plugging into the Internet.

“According to the report, broadband is becoming cheap and affordable in almost every nation on Earth.”

Internet access brings knowledge and information to the poor around the world. The reality is that a poor person is more likely to gain access to the Internet and the world of knowledge and information that it brings, than he or she is to get well-trained teacher in school.

Disruption will come when the poor of the world figure out ways to educate themselves and their neighbors via the Internet. Of course this education won’t match the focus, rigor, and quality of Western schools, but never the less, the drive and need to learn will create a youth movement in these developing countries for using the Internet as a tool to educate themselves and others.

And if all one has is the Internet, one is eventually going to get very good at using it to meet their needs. He or she will develop methods and practices that seem strange, different, and unorthodox. They will rely on the Internet as a source of education.

Some in the West might begin to look at these poor kids in developing countries teaching themselves and their neighbors without classrooms and without teachers. Some might begin to wonder and ask, “If it works for them, might it work for us?” Some might adopt some of these strange, different, and unorthodox practices.

Some might say this is the way that works best for me. This is the way I want to learn.

And change might finally come to public education. Disruption brought to the wealthy West from the dusty villages, back alleys, and crowded slums of the developing world.

Probably won’t happen right? But it might.

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Posted in disruption, Edreform, Rob Jacobs, teaching, technology

Dueling Dichotomies of Technology: Autobots & Decepticons

July 16th, 2009

By Jason Flom, Ecology of Education

Pop Quiz

(Complete the following sentence with the answer you think is better than the others):

Technology is

  1. Good.
  2. Bad.
  3. Indifferent.
  4. Transformative.
  5. All of the above.

If you picked 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, you’re right! Congratulations! Nice work!

By itself, technology is neither good or bad. In fact, when sitting on a shelf collecting dust it is relatively neutral, indifferent (at least for now). However, if being steered by whim or intent, it transforms into something else — a transformational catalyst with the potential for positive or negative impacts on the world.

What’s more, once we start using technology to solve our problems with technology, we travel a slippery slope that can only lead to Optimus Prime.

Regardless of the where it leads, technology is here to stay. Case in point: In numerous fake studies conducted in my imagination around the world, when given the option between 1. Refrigerated beer or 2. Having to see Rush Limbaugh romp around in a fig leaf, most people chose refrigerated beer.

However, there is a more sinister (if accidental) division separating the world from itself — access to resources and technology.

While keeping Rush fully clothed is good for the planet, keeping pace with the rapid increase in technological advancements without equalizing global access may not be. Our insatiable appetite for the latest and greatest techno gadgets may well prove to set the stage for an epic battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons. (And just to be clear, we in the developed world are both.) Paradoxically, access is both the good and the bad.

For the places that have the latest technology, it has transformed the way people interact with information, problems, and perhaps most importantly, with each other. In fact, the last 10 years of technological developments have already begun to reshape how we look at learning and the future of learning. More and more research is pointing to the positive impact technology can have in shaping learning environments and outcomes.

For places that do not have access to technology, the gap separating them from the rest of the world is expanding. The divide between the haves and the have-nots grows exponentially.

The problem is that few elect to be the have-nots. In another series of fake surveys in my head I found that most people did not want to be poor, famished, and living without many of the modern conveniences that we in the richest nations take for granted.

With the global digital divide a stark and sobering reality for many around the world, those with access are not waiting idly by for the rest of the world to catch up.

And for good reason. Besides being able to watch Jon Stewart at our leisure, technology enables us to see what possessions people other than our neighbors have, allowing us to covet and demand luxuries we didn’t even know existed. (But that we absolutely must have.)

We see. We want. We get. We toss. Repeat. Often. The more the better.

The trouble is that the have-nots also want those things too. (Alright, that isn’t the problem, exactly.)

The real problem between the Autobots (technology’s transformative potential in fostering communication and collaboration) and the Decepticons (technology’s transformative potential in how we prioritize our needs vs. wants), is sustainability. Let’s face it, many of the resources we depend on are relatively finite. There is simply not enough for everyone to have everything.

And here’s the hard pill to swallow: we who use technology in hopes of making the world a better place — we are as much a part of the problem as those who use it for ill.

Check out this quick and easy Footprint Calculator. It gives the results as the number of Earth’s it would take if everyone lived the same. As a point of reference, we’d need 4.3 Earths if everyone lived like me. 4.3 Earths! Uh-oh! Am I Megatron?

There’s really no way around it: our frantic pace of advancement and acquisition will one day reach a point of where our increased demand will meet decreased yields — of oil, metal, minerals, and/or places to dispose of it all.

I’m not suggesting we abandon ship, don robes, all become possession repudiators and battle against any form of transformer. Far from it. We need transformers (aka: innovation) in order to grow and lessen inequalities the world over.

I am suggesting we prepare students for thinking critically, asking questions, working together, and building the skills that matter most for dealing with the problems that I helped (and am helping) to create. For every problem technology solves, another is created. And the world that is coming, is not the world that was or even the one that is now. Things change. Students need to be prepared to learn and adapt, and to be effective agents of change.

We, as educators, need to see beyond the textbooks, the standards, the assessments, and even the technology to the greater world beyond. Tony Wagner of Harvard Graduate School of Education, in his new book, The Global Achievement Gap, makes a compelling case for survival skills that our graduates will need to survive in a new globalized economy.

I think Kelly Hines had it right to suggest that when we think about quality teaching “It’s Not About the Technology”. However, I also think Kelly Hines had it right to wonder, “Or Is It About the Technology?”

When it comes to teaching, learning and collaboration, interactive technology has already proven itself to be a paradigm shifting catalyst whose impact has only just begun to transform education and global culture. We should be ever mindful, however, of seeing it as the silver bullet, the Autobot without a Decepticon counterpart. Students need to be prepared to utilize technology without becoming beholden to it. However, the iPhone and its ilk are so woven into the fabric of our society that we can expect the ripples of its invention to extend far into the future. Even if it all were to crash now. (Which I hope it doesn’t. I’m really looking forward to the next Ironman installment.)

Image 1: GWJokes Image 2: Wiki Commons Image 3: Tim Doyle
You can follow JasonFlom on Twitter.

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Posted in Autobots, Decepticons, Digital Divide, technology, Tony Wagner, Transformers

10 Principles for the Future of Learning

July 5th, 2009

(This post, written by Jason Flom, is cross-posted on Ecology of Education.)

I daydream the future of schooling will include a teacher like this. (It’s too late for me, I know, but I cross my fingers for the sake of my daughter.)

Yoda aside, who better to daydream the future of learning with than the good folks at MIT? With minds on the front edge of theory, application, and innovation, they’ve shown prescient leadership in harnessing and shaping the emerging trends between technology, media, and learning.

Thanks to funding from the MacArthur Foundation, The MIT Press has published a series on digital media and learning (with open access electronic versions), which they describe this way:

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning examines the effect of digital media tools on how people learn, network, communicate, and play, and how growing up with these tools may affect peoples sense of self, how they express themselves, and their ability to learn, exercise judgment, and think systematically.

In their report, The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age, Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg investigate the internet’s transformation of shared and interactive learning. They suggest the following 10 principles as “fundamental to the future of learning institutions”.

(The principles in bold are unedited. The corresponding quotes were extracted from their explanation of the principles.)

1. Self Learning

Self-learning has bloomed; discovering online possibilities is a skill now developed from early childhood through advanced adult life.

2. Horizontal Structures

Given the range and volume of information available and the ubiquity of access to information sources and resources, learning strategy shifts from a focus on information as such to judgment concerning reliable information, from memorizing information to how to find reliable sources. In short, from learning that to learning how, from content to process.

3. From Presumed Authority to Collective Credibility

Learning is shifting from issues of authoritativeness to issues of credibility. A major part of the future of learning is in developing methods, often communal, for distinguishing good knowledge sources from those that are questionable . . . We find ourselves increasingly being moved to interdisciplinary and collaborative knowledge-creating and learning environments in order to address objects of analysis and research problems that are multidimensional and complex, and the resolution of which cannot be fashioned by any single discipline.

4. A De-Centered Pedagogy

In secondary schools and higher education, many administrators and individual teachers have been moved to limit use of collectively and collaboratively crafted knowledge sources, most notably Wikipedia, for course assignments or to issue quite stringent guidelines for their consultation and reference.26 This is a catastrophically anti-intellectual reaction to a knowledge-making, global phenomenon of epic proportions. . .

Instead, leaders at learning institutions need to adopt a more inductive, collective pedagogy that takes advantage of our era.

5. Networked Learning

The power of ten working interactively will almost invariably outstrip the power of one looking to beat out the other nine.

6. Open Source Education

Networked learning is predicated on and deeply interwoven into the fabric of open source culture.29 Open source culture seeks to share openly and freely in the creation of culture, in its production processes, and in its product, its content. It looks to have its processes and products improved through the contributions of others by being made freely available to all.

If individualized learning is largely tethered to a social regime of copyright-protected intellectual property and privatized ownership, networked learning is committed in the end to an open source and open content social regime. Individualized learning tends overwhelmingly to be hierarchical: one learns from the teacher or expert, on the basis overwhelmingly of copyright-protected publications bearing the current status of knowledge. Networked learning is at least peer-to-peer and more robustly many-to-many.

7. Learning as Connectivity and Interactivity

The connectivities and interactivities made possible by digitally enabled social networking in its best outcomes produce learning ensembles in which the members both support and sustain, elicit from and expand on each other’s learning inputs, contributions, and products. Challenges are not simply individually faced frustrations, Promethean mountains to climb alone, but mutually shared, to be redefined, solved, resolved, or worked around—together.

8. Lifelong Learning

It has become obvious that from the point of view of participatory learning there is no finality. Learning is lifelong.

9. Learning Institutions as Mobilizing Networks

Network culture and associated learning practices and arrangements suggest that we think of institutions, especially those promoting learning, as mobilizing networks. The networks enable a mobilizing that stresses flexibility, interactivity, and outcome.

10. Flexible Scalability and Simulation

Networked learning both facilitates and must remain open to various scales of learning possibility, from the small and local to the widest and most far-reaching constituencies capable of productively contributing to a domain, subject matter, knowledge formation and creation. New technologies allow for small groups whose members are at physical distance to each other to learn collaboratively together and from each other; but they also enable larger, more anonymous yet equally productive interactions.

Image: Wordle

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Posted in Cathy N. Davidson, David Theo Goldberg, Jason Flom, MacArthur Foundation, MIT, technology

Integrated Living. Separated Learning? Part 1

June 26th, 2009


(This article, written by Jason Flom, is crossposted on Ecology of Education)

I marvel at my phone. It surfs the internet, finds my e-mail, lets me twitter, takes calls, and gets along well with my computer. It’s a calendar, a stopwatch, a newspaper, and a means of distracting my daughter when she needs distracting. It’s the height of integration (for now). So many systems amalgamated. So many advances in technology blended together.

Yet it serves as only a sign and symptom of a much larger trend: increasing connections.

We live in integrated worlds. Myriad spheres overlap and influence other spheres. As the layers and connections increase, so does the complexity and the reverberations of actions, both positive and negative. While many of use get pretty excited by the integrated nature of our technology, it is the interrelated systems of nations and cultures that pose the largest long term impact.

A short list of challenges in today’s world:

  • Climate change
  • The Great Recession
  • Rising extinction rates
  • Famine
  • Poverty
  • Access to potable water
  • Basic rights
  • Education for all

This list is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive. Social and environmental issues run the gambit from site specific challenges to global ramifications. We have about as much hope of cataloging them all as of convincing a 2 year old that whining is an ineffective method for achieving one’s goals.

What’s more, this list isn’t new. Most of these issues have followed (perhaps even pushed) humanity from the savannas of Africa to all corners of terra firma.

So, what’s the point?

The point is this: The complexity of these issues escalates exponentially as the connections and interactions between people and nations increase. Actions by one party potentially impacts others on a much grander scale than ever before. And as the networks grow, so do the effects of our decisions and our patterns of living. (An example of this theory in action: Iranian elections.)

Of course, in this case, the enabling keystone of expanded spheres of influence is technology, which has effectively flattened the world by decreasing the role of proximity as the necessary cornerstone for communication, collaboration, and conflict. (Technology has also exacerbated the divide between the haves and the have nots, but that is fodder for another post.)

The result is that our problems, as people of Earth, are now, more than ever, shared problems. Solutions to those problems cannot be found or enacted in isolation. Want to minimize global climate change? One must act locally and globally. Watching An Inconvenient Truth won’t be enough. Adjusting one’s consumer patterns can make a difference, but real change will happen when a mass of interconnected citizens who demand or create action. (Or a great calamity forces us to rethink.) Technology allows previously isolated groups to join together, for better or for worse, and drive change.

What does this have to do with education?

Everything.

Image: MIT Senseable City Lab

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Posted in Jason Flom, learning, Sphere of Influence, Systems thinking, technology, X Collaboration X Education X globalization X Integration

Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration

June 2nd, 2009

By Richard Byrne

My school is going to a 1:1 environment with netbooks next year. I’m one of the people that teachers will be coming to for help when the netbooks are distributed next. Therefore, I’ve been trying to compile a small list of essential resources that can be used across the curriculum. The product of that work is this guide titled Twelve Essentials for Techology Integration. This guide will serve as a getting start for techers and the basis for some informal trainings that I’ll be offering to staff. I gave a hint about this yesterday on Twitter when I asked “if you could choose just three web-based resources to use in your classroom, what would they be?”
The guide is embedded below.

RSS readers may need to click through to view the guide.
It is by no means comprehensive, but it is a good starting place for those teachers who need advice on taking their first steps toward integrating technology into their classrooms. I welcome any and all feedback. If you like it and know a teacher or teachers who would benefit from it, please feel free to print it and distribute it.

If you find this guide useful, please visit Free Technology for Teachers to find more great, free resources you can use in your classroom.

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Posted in Richard Byrne, technology

Or Is It About the Technology?

May 11th, 2009

By Kelly Hines, Keeping Kids First

A few weeks ago, I published a series of my thoughts on 21st century learning and teaching in a post titled “It’s Not About the Technology.” For a tech integrator and enthusiast like me, it was almost uncomfortable to articulate these ideas independent of technology. As a quick recap, my main points were that educators must focus on the skills of problem solving, addressing the needs of individual students and learning, as opposed to teaching.

This week, Ben Grey posted a thought-provoking article to “Tech & Learning” titled “Why Technology?” As friends of mine in ed tech positions across the United States are losing funding for their departments, and even their positions, Ben Grey’s questions are all the more pressing. As the author of a post titled “It’s Not About the Technology”, what would I say if I were asked to stand in front of a board of education or other decision making body and answer the question “Why should we continue to use and pursue technology in our district?”

Honestly, I would start by taking a quick, informal poll. Where have you received and made most of your recent calls? Your cell phone or your land line? Have you ever by passed a gas station because they didn’t have pay at the pump? Where do you look for information? In an encyclopedia or on the internet?

What do our children need to know in order to be successful in our world? Already in 2009, you must be able to navigate the internet and be savvy about decision making and purchasing. North Carolina’s Department of Motor Vehicles is no longer sending out license plate renewal notifications by US Postal Service. All drivers in North Carolina will have to go online to renew their registration. Our children have to be prepared to live and prosper in this world.

But what are we really talking about here? We talking about standing in front of a decision making body that has to weigh sustainability, budgets, personnel and other political factors. They can easily argue that technology use in the classroom has not been proven to raise test scores. Technology is always changing, so how can we keep up? Opponents say that kids get enough social media at home. So, let’s talk a language that they will understand.

The state of California spends approximately $400 million dollars per year on textbooks. Yes, that’s $400, 000, 000 every year. A university professor I know figured out that his university could hire three full-time teaching faculty positions if the university would go paperless. A particular school system in Maine spent nearly $10, 000 this year on hospital/homebound services, not including labor costs. It costs $200 per person to send a teacher to interactive whiteboard training with particular software companies. Webinars can be included for free for unlimited participants to learn on their own time in their own way. For any governing body, these numbers should be staggering. The great news is that we have the resources to combat these things in a modern, all-inclusive and multi-functional way. Technology.

What do high schools need in order to establish academic credibility? They must offer a high variety of courses in all disciplines. They need to provide opportunities for individual and collective groups of students to pursue independent areas of advanced studies. What do you do when you cannot afford a Japanese teacher for ten interested students or an Advanced Placement Biology teacher for nine motivated students? You coordinate with a community college, university or partnering school to offer these courses to students virtually. How can you provide SAT test prep for students who have to work late and on weekends? You create a free Moodle course that students can access from home at times that are conducive to their busy schedules. How do you provide high quality hospital/homebound instruction for students? You enroll them in a regular education classroom and you have them Skype in to a grade-level appropriate classroom where they can interact with curriculum, teachers and peers to facilitate learning. How do you make sure that teachers are getting “just in time” professional development? You create a series of professional development activities that are collaborative in nature to address the demands of individual teachers on a schedule that meets family obligations as well. How do you create an environmentally conscious school system while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment, toner, repairs & paper? You help students. to learn and share in a paperless learning environment. How do you avoid spending millions of dollars on loosely correlated textbooks that are error riddled and often out-dated before they are printed? You build courses around free, open source resources that are web-based, accessible from all edges of the globe and are easily differentiated to address the learning needs of all students without sacrificing the integrity of the curriculum’s content.

Before systems around the United States (and the world) start cutting technology positions and funds, I hope they will consider that these positions and resources may be exactly what saves us in this time of economic uncertainty. While I will holdfast to my ideas that there are fundamental concepts that must be in place before 21st century learning will be at its best (with or without the technology), maybe it IS about the technology when it comes to best serving our students today and beyond!

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Posted in 21st century skills, Kelly Hines, learning, technology

It’s Not about the Technology

April 19th, 2009

(By Kelly W. Hines, Keeping Kids First)

I am sitting here at my laptop, occasionally watching my Skype and Tweetdeck notifications in case I miss something from a family member or colleague, and I’m going to honestly tell you that learning in the 21st century is not about the technology. Blasphemy! my tech-savvy friends are saying. Six months ago I might have agreed, but today I’m more than willing to stand by my words.

We are hearing more and more talk recently about what learning and teaching will look like in the 21st century. What do we need to bring us into the future? What will our children need to know and be able to do? The first thing to comes to everyone’s mind is technology. We need computers. We need ipods. We need wireless connectivity. We need 1:1 initiatives. We need blogs, wikis and podcasts. While I completely agree with the fact that these are innovative tools for teaching and learning, I do not agree that these are the first things we need to initiate change in our classrooms.

Before anything else, the educational community (including state and national organizations, teacher preparation programs, and local systems) must recognize the need to change an overall approach to teaching and learning. The tools mentioned earlier, like netbooks, 1:1 initiatives, and web 2.0 tools, will not be effective vehicles for instruction without an evolution in mindset. Here is a list of four things that every teacher must recognize in order to effectively and positively impact students in a new generation of learning.

1. Teachers must be learners. As teachers, most of us have completed a specialised teacher preparation program. We have passed a test of proficiency in basic educational theory and child psychology. We have demonstrated mastery of our own content areas. Think about the teachers in your building. The years that these teachers have exited these initial requirements span decades. If you put them all in one room, you will probably find that their experiences in these areas were very different. Yet, they are all teaching children today. Teachers today must be perpetual learners who are invested in their professions. We must be up to date on current trends, research and tools. We must know what our students are doing and where they are coming from when they enter our classrooms. This learning cannot just include mandated workshops and occasional required readings. Teachers who want to be truly succesful must be voracious and self-motivated in their pursuit of evoloving understanding.

2. Learning and Teaching are not the same thing. How many times have we heard a colleague say, “I don’t know why these kids don’t get it. I’ve taught it a hundred times.” I equate teaching and learning to a basic physics principle. If an object does not move, no matter how much force has been applied, no work has been done. Therefore, if a student has not learned, not matter how much effort has been exerted, no teaching has been done. Teaching in the 21st century is going to be about working smarter and not harder. It is not about adding to our proverbial plates. We must look at learning as the product of a successful day. Learning will not look the same to all students or all teachers, but it must be the goal.

3. Technology is useless without good teaching. We have countless technological tools at our disposable today. These tools range in cost from free to thousands and thousands of dollars. When we put innovative tools in the hands of innovative teachers, amazing things can happen. If you put these tools in the hands of teachers who are not willing to innovate, money has been wasted. There are arguments against spending the money on interactive whiteboards for classrooms. At approximately $5000 each, you would think these boards would facilitate better teaching. It is not about the board. It is about proper training and mindset of a teacher who is already willing and eager to do amazing things. The lack of comprehensive and curriculum-related professional development for teachers is why schools have thousands of computers that are being used as game systems and word processors.

4. Be a 21st Century Teacher without the technology. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has published a framework for learning in the 21st century. The core outcomes for students include:

1. Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes
2. Learning and Innovation Skills
* Creativity and Innovation
* Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
* Communication and Collaboration
3. Information, Media and Technology Skills
* Information Literacy
* Media Literacy
* ICT Literacy
4. Life and Career Skills

Upon careful consideration, these are outcomes that can be achieved with little technology (excluding of course some components of the Information, Media and Technology Skills). If a teacher can find ways to prepare students with the capacity to be creative and innovative, those children will be well prepared to face the future. Teachers who customize the learning experiences of their students to involve critical thinking and problem solving are doing their students a greater favor than those who misuse technology as a means of facilitating learning. Those teachers who know how to foster communication and collaboration within their classrooms and school buildings are equipping their students with the abilities to apply these core skills to more areas in their own lives.

Now imagine a classroom where the teacher has embraced these principles. The teacher is a learner. The teacher teaches with learning in mind. 21st century skills are highlighted through facilitative leadership. These foundational components of a quality classroom experience will ensure that students value experiential and focused learning. Now if you take this teacher and introduce them to the wonders that technology offers for students, the possibilities are endless. But, it really is not about the technology.

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Posted in 21st century skills, k-12 education, Kelly Hines, learning, teaching, technology

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