The Education Business Blog
Curious about how Web 2.0 is going to affect education? Steve Hargadon has distilled into one blog post an excellent summary of the trends that are leading us there and what teachers can do to help their students thrive in this new environment.
Much of what Steve talks about has been part of a vision for education long before computers were going into schools. There is a clear link from Dewey, Piaget, Vigotsky, and even the constructivist critic Mayer to the ideas Hargadon lays out.
Both the technology and the culture that surrounds it have matured to the point where this vision can transform into the dominant paradigm. Quantitative and anecdotal evidence backs this assertion up.
He describes in some detail the following shifts that are taking place:
- “From consuming to producing
- From authority to transparency
- From the expert to the facilitator
- From the lecture to the hallway
- From “access to information” to “access to people”
- From “learning about” to “learning to be”
- From passive to passionate learning
- From presentation to participation
- From publication to conversation
- From formal schooling to lifelong learning
- From supply-push to demand-pull”
He concludes:
“We’ve spent the last ten years teaching students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content – now we have to teach them to create appropriate content. They may be “digital natives,” but their knowledge is surface level, and they desperately need training in real thinking skills. More than any other generation, they live lives that are largely separated from the adults around them, talking and texting on cell phones, and connecting online. We may be afraid to enter that world, but enter it we must, for they often swim in uncharted waters without the benefit of adult guidance.”
Hat tip to Carolyn Foote for flagging this.
For publishers I’ve outlined similar ideas about what is happening and what you can do to participate in this movement in the following series of posts.
Information Overload Series
Part 1 – It’s all in your head – really
Part 2 – A cure for “a poverty of attention”
Part 3 – 10 Ways to Build Instructional Products For 21st Century Skills
Part 4 – 10 Ideas to For Marketing & Selling In An Age of Infinite Input