למידה, אינטרנט ... ומה שביניהם

Don’t lecture me about the power of social media, the genius of your PLN, the imperative for media literacy or information curation if you are unwilling to edit what you share. I share plenty of terrible articles via Twitter and Facebook, but I always make clear that I am doing so for purposes of warning or parody. The junk is always clearly labeled.

Please filter the impurities out of your social media stream. You have a responsibility to your audience.

And this is where the “don’t go to school” chorus can be quite tone-deaf. A veritable cottage industry has sprung up to pen the “don’t go back to school” books, blog posts, articles, and op-eds. But the advice — “don’t go!” — frequently comes with some trite recommendations of what to do in lieu of formal education: “Need a job? Invent it.” Or “Want to learn anything? Write a personal learning plan.” Or “budget $150 a month” to take smart and interesting people out for coffee. Or “open up 20 or so tabs in your Web browser.” “You can learn anything you want on the Internet!” — except, let’s be honest, you can’t. And even if you could, so what?

At bottom, I find the question to be whether this new technology serves institutions in their teaching, individuals in their learning, or corporations in their missions.

The numerous interdependent stakeholders in education technology with their legitimate interests are in tension with each other. Even mission-driven companies need to make money, and non-profit foundations need to show short-term results to donors. The education system needs to demonstrate high test scores and college enrollment among all populations, and learners need to get good grades and get into a good college in order to support a middle-class life. This leads to the prioritization of profit over mission, trivial experiments over deep research, test preparation over critical thinking, and grades over learning.

If the education ecosystem is in a meta-stable state that resists change, and if the institutions of education have near absolute power in defining and awarding accreditation, and if the processes and outcomes of this system are sub-optimal for most students as compared to our aspirations, then disruption, as with the Web 2.0 shift elsewhere, is much more a matter of removing constraints and allowing organic evolution than it is of top-down reform.

To disrupt education, focus on the products and services that shift power from institutions into the hands of individual students, parents, and teachers: online assessments that tell a student what she has learned and what she could learn next, knowledge maps that show how specific skills and understanding add up to expertise in a subject or field, guided tours that take a learner through the experiences that develop mastery of various subjects, collaboration platforms that support peer learning and peer standards of excellence, data collection engines that give learners deep insight into their learning: more, invent the tools and resources that give power to learners and to the teachers that guide, encourage, and inspire them in ways that have not yet been framed or considered.

Point out the unintended consequences of what will be a stuttering, messy, disruptive force interacting with a massive, stable system already rife with its own abuses and consequences ....

But there was one idea that stuck with me. This is from my notes so may not be a perfect quote, but should be pretty close:

We should be striving for personalized learning, not individualized learning. Individualized learning is a different approach toward the same goal.

This is something I think I've been trying to get my head around for a while now, but he succinctly captured it in two sentences. A lot of the affordances of technology can be applied to either of those approaches, personalized or individualized. I've typically used some form of "personal" when I talk about this, but I've also typically equated it with "individualized." Dr. Zhao points out the flaw in that equation and I think it's important for me - and others - to recognize it.

While I do think that's marginally better than the current approach (standardized approaches to a standardized end), I worry that much of the promise I see will be directed toward an end that is detrimental for our students.

21 Reasons to Stop Saying "21st Century Teacher"

This afternoon I saw a blog post titled 27 Ways To Be A 21st Century Teacher. 22 of the 27 items in that list could have been 50 years ago. And 24 of the 27 items are things that I did as a sixth grade student in 1990.

We live in the 21st Century. If you're teaching today, you're a 21st Century teacher.

11. Good teachers have always consulted with other teachers. Twitter didn't invent professional learning networks, personal learning networks, or professional learning groups.
12. Good teachers have always been life-long learners looking to bring new information into their classrooms. Google didn't invent that.

21st Century Readiness Skills for Teachers & Students

Essentially, the flip reverses traditional teaching.

It's unlike traditional homework in that students know we won't spend class time going over the content they've studied at home. Instead, we use that content as a springboard into deeper discussion and activities.

ההחלטה לוותה בהתלבטויות - האם המודל מתאים לדרך ההוראה שלי? לחומר הלימוד? לתלמידים?

גם לאחר ההתנסות אני עדיין לא בטוח....

שאלתי את התלמידים אם ירצו ללמוד מסרטונים של חבריהם לכיתה (לאחר בקרת איכות שלי). הייתי סבור, לאור הדיונים בכיתה, שהתלמידים יעדיפו למידה מסורתית, אולם היה קונצנזוס -התלמידים בכיתה מעוניינים ללמוד מתוך סרטונים של חבריהם, על מנת לפנות יותר זמן בכיתה לדיון, תרגול והעמקה.