George Siemens Needs Help

This is an interesting way to pose research questions and to gather answers. In a blog post in elearnspace Siemens wrote, "I often hear educators talking about “education needs to change” and then he asked people to respond to some questions. I admire George's writing and had the privilege of hearing him speak at the ODCE 2007 . So, I decided to respond to his request and provide my answers to his questions.



1. Does education need to change?

Yes, education needs to change and improve.


2. Why or why not?

Education should not change for changes sake, but should take a look at its history, practice, and all of the educational research that is catalogued and make needed changes. Education is research based, but does not seem to reflect on and use information to improve its monolithic self.

3. If it should change, what should it become? How should education (k-12, higher, or corporate) look like in the future?

Improvement, rather than just change, would mean that education (all) would take on a serious look at practices, policies, and methods and begin the hard work of reinventing itself. Much of what we do in education is based on what has been done in the past and does not appear to be connected to the here and now or to looking at the future.

Are there other Toffler fans out there? In a recent Edutopia article he said, "Shut it down." The idea of starting over is frightening in terms of human capital and the amount of time and money it would take to rebuild, but the fundamentals proposed in Toffler's School of Tomorrow do sound better suited to how we live today.

Here they are copy and paste from Edutopia.org and Alvin.

Toffler's vision for education in the twenty-first century:

• Open twenty-four hours a day
• Customized educational experience
• Kids arrive at different times
• Students begin their formalized schooling at different ages
• Curriculum is integrated across disciplines
• Nonteachers work with teachers
• Teachers alternate working in schools and in business world
• Local businesses have offices in the schools
• Increased number of charter schools

P.S. Edutopia posted a poll asking readers whether education would be better off in four years.

YouTube Video on Innovation

Sharing a video that illustrates innovation and accretion at work.This is a lovely piece of work created by a student at Lewis Clark College on innovation. Information Heyadan provides is that he “specializes in animation, especially the type of explaining concepts quickly with pictures and animated graphics / graphs to convey points.” I'll say.

Innovation and Preparation

While completing a recent writing assignment for work I ran across a New York Times article by Janet Rae-Dupree (February 2008) titled, Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work. Durpree's article is a readable reminder that the work of innovation is not always that innovative. In the article, Durpree provided a Scott Berkun quote that sums up innovation. According to Berkun, “Everything results from accretion" and he goes on to say, "I didn’t invent the English language. I have to use a language that someone else created in order to talk to you. So the process by which something is created is always incremental. It always involves using stuff that other people have made.”

So learning from others and building on the "stuff" of others is the way we all innovate. Dupre also quoted Louis Pasteur who wrote, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” I am always hoping to have a Eureka! moment. I also love to read authors who use the word balderdash to open a sentence. Janet Rae-Dupree writes about science and emerging technology in Silicon Valley for the New York Times after reading this article on innovation I found many other of her articles. I'll be reading her column regularly now.

The Clipboard and Leadership

This short old-timey looking video reminds me of how any technology can be used with the intent to make one's self look cooler and more savvy than others. I saw Dr. Darcy Hardy use this video in a keynote at the MIC08 and found it on YouTube this evening.

Enjoy.

Collaboration Tools: Google Docs

I have not played around much with Google Docs, but am hearing more and more people talk about using them. Wanted to point to information presented by Tom Barrett (a noted Google Docs expert) presented on the Official Google Docs Blog: New and Notes from the Google Docs Team.
Barrett has a presentation titled, Eleven Interesting Ways to Use Google Docs in the Classroom, and is asking people to email him with their tips, tricks, techniques, and uses of Google Docs.

Do you Wordle?

It is fun to play around with Wordle. This wordle was created using a copy and paste of text from my blog. Feinberg described Wordle as a "toy" that can create word clouds. Wordle is simple use and the "randomize" feature provides Wordles of text in various fonts and colors.

It would be visually interesting to view political speeches as Wordle. What about a novel or a history book? Hmmm.

More on EdTech Talk and "Amplyfing Possibilities"

Special thanks to EdTechTalk for promoting the October 2008, K12 Online conference on “Amplifying Possibilities”. This conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 13, 2008 and by October 27-31, forty presentations will be posted online to download and view. This online conference will have “Fireside Chats” and “When Night Falls” events for people interested in the use of technology to improve teaching and learning at all levels of education throughout the world.

According to EdTechTalk, they are "a community of people interested in the use of technology to improve teaching and learning at all levels of education throughout the world. EdTech Talk has several live events each week and an information packed newsletter. As a Worldbridges community, it embraces the values of collaboration and inclusiveness.