Like Alice, educators today are teetering on the edge of a bottomless rabbit hole.By refusing to adapt our teacher-centred 19th century learning environments to meet the needs of students immersed in today's interactive collaborative technologies - governments and educational institutions, from school districts to faculties of education, set them up for failure.
By refusing to try and understand what it means to be literate in a digital world - we rob our children of opportunities to expand and enrich their own personal learning networks.
Fortunately we have visionaries like David Warlick and Amber MacArther and learning opportunities like the recent RCAC Symposium to remind educators that by embracing and using new technologies in the classroom, they help prepare their students for a future that even the most clairvoyant teachers cannot clearly describe.
Teachers who use wikis, blogs, podcasts, video games and other collaborative technologies are changing the learning landscape in their classrooms and engaging their students in rich learning experiences.
Like the eco-warriors who struggle to construct a new power grid based on clean, renewable energy - today's educational leaders must strive to construct a bold new 'power grid of the mind' that harnesses synergy and and favors collaboration over domination.
The educational visionaries who spoke and presented at today's symposium will at least help ease the fall into the rabbit hole and reveal a little more of what lies beyond the looking glass.
The educational visionaries who spoke and presented at today's symposium will at least help ease the fall into the rabbit hole and reveal a little more of what lies beyond the looking glass.
Photo: M. Redfearn
Tags: flat, classroom, work, technology
2 comments:
Great post, Mike. I like the phrase about robbing kids of opportunities by not embracing it. Well quoted.
I love the way you've engaged such an apt metaphor to describe our responsibility as educators. I picture hundreds or thousands of teachers clinging to the edge of the rabbit hole, refusing to fall in.
Should we push people down the rabbit hole, or tempt them to join us?
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