All the *buzz* words become *authentic* when education is modeled on LEARNING rather than TEACHING. In the future, I see *student-centered* environments in which learners pursue their *passion-based* areas of interest by *constructing* knowledge needed to solve *relevant* problems. Learners will be nurtured locally and virtually by *teams* of technology proficient content experts. Learners will be *guided* in *collaborative* learning activities by information-savvy *facilitators* that coordinate with school, community and global experts to identify *social learning networks*, *authentic projects*, and *active learning* resources. *Mastery* learning will be demonstrated by the learners’s *performance* and measured by successful demonstration of the knowledge, skills and *expertise* needed to *create* and *innovate* in an academic discipline.

What does this mean for teaching? It means far fewer teachers. Those content experts who survive competitive performance-based internships will be highly compensated for strong interpersonal skills, content expertise, and ability to transfer their expertise to the practice of learning.

You are correct, Chris, learners will begin a “life-long” quest for knowledge that is based on a disciplined, informed and *self-directed* love of learning.

I am intrigued with the question you posed above: “What happens when ‘home schooling’ becomes meshed with educators who understand the power of connected learning?”

I hope you will follow up on this fascinating invention – no doubt “mothered by necessity.”

I’m not sure how to respond:

a) If you’re going to call me “fella,” you have to at least buy me a drink.

b) It’s Dr. Fella to you.

My concern is that “kids might have time to learn what they want to” without the risk of meeting a great band director or art teacher or drama director or poet or scientist or all sorts of expert who could open a kid’s eyes and mind to a world of possibilities and pursuit of mastery in a real discipline (in the best sense of the word).

“Nothing in these conversations changed my view that to really change what we do in schools we have to first change our understanding of what it means to teach in this moment.”

Shouldn’t the real question be, “what it means to LEARN in this moment.”? Technology should be about providing a different way of learning, not teaching.

My guess as to why the Florida Virtual High School is successful is that the kids online can quickly learn what they need to for the test,and then have time to learn what they want to.

I can’t agree more. We touched on this during your Skype webinar in Ontario a while back.

There is nothing more exciting to hear our children/students talk about the subjects they have passion for. Quite frankly the grades [higher in subjects they like] don’t strike me as much as the conversation around the dinner table. The comments are, “it is interesting, active and fun”….”I really like this course”…”I don’t want it to end when I have this class”.

Sir Ken Robinson speaks about finding your passion. Any one of Sir Ken’s most recent talks [either RSA or Edutopia] contains his insightful comments about finding one’s passion.

His latest book entitled, “The Element” [Jan. 2009] will be on my new year reading list. He interviewed folks from all walks of life about what their passion and talents are.

Thank you for the discussion…

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As usual, I like the way you’re thinking works here. Your skepticism is always refreshing. I have found myself reading up on anti-teaching literature and am about to reopen Teaching as a Subversive Activity for the third time.

The answers to our current struggles are not about technology or moving the same old thing online. The future is going to be about developing new ways to think about teaching–that is, teaching students to ask questions rather than provide answers. The future is about teachers and students working together to solve local/global (glocal?) issues together. It’s about re-engineering/re-wiring our learning environments to focus on new narratives of what it means to be educated, what it means to think global/act local.

We need to teach kids more than anything to learn how to ask good questions, questions that force students to challenge their taken-for-granted assumptions, questions that reveal their underlying biases. A good question is an insight in and of itself, right? Ultimately these good questions lead to more good questions sending students on meaningful, lifelong quests–just like the one you’re on!

I disagree with the “school as babysitter” argument. Sure, some parents may view that as the purpose of school, but even if that’s the case, at least their child is learning how to exist, and work in an environment that contains people who are vastly different than them. That’s a skill you can’t learn by home-schooling. That’s a skill you can’t learn at most private schools. And, that’s certainly a skill you can’t learn at the School of the Future.

I’m completely on board with the networking capabilities our students now have to meet others. But, the whole point of meeting people who are different than you — or the same as you, yet in other parts of the world — is that you take that experience and infuse it into your daily life. I would just hate to think that the first time we ask a child to interact with those different than them is the first day on their first job.