“There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication… Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somwhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.”

and a more directly aplicable one to this post, by arthur koestler “creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”

i find having these quotes posted on the walls of my room to be a nice reminder of where i´m trying to get, just in case one day i get lost…

Thanks for the comment, but I’m going to respectfully disagree. Bauerlein’s book blames kids for dumbing themselves down with technology. I hold kids largely blameless if they grow up in a world where no one is teaching them the potentials and opportunities that technologies can bring from a learning standpoint. The problems do lie with our basic lack of understanding and context for this shift that is occurring. And like all other shifts of this magnitude, there is going to be a significant period of disruption and adjustment. Taking the kids to task for living in the time between the advent of these shifts and the time we figure out what to do with them seems disingenuous at best.

Will, I read your book on blogs and wikis in 2005. I was working at a private school at the time and had technology skills well in advance of anyone else at the school. I promote technolgy heavily. I’ve taken every course I could over the past ten years. But slowly a creeping disbelief has grow – a disquiet. The educational outcomes are getting worse not better as the inbvestment in technology grew. It has been easy to blame the teachers for not getting on board, but I certainly have seen many make the effort.

During those ten years I also worked as an adjunct at he local community college. Unprepared students entered the classroom at startling rates. They could not write and they could not think. It seems to be worse every year. Facutly try to cope by lowering their standards.

The research studies profiled in this book gave me a basis for understanding my disquietude. The problems lie not in our adaption of technology but in our dumping the traditional models of education, which our educational system already has done.

This book is a must read for every educator in the country.

I had a thought that bounced around my head this week (not sure if it was the tropical sun or the fruity drinks! ). As you probably know, the Reggio Emilia approach advocates teacher assisted documentation of student work. Their reasoning is deeply rooted in philosophical beliefs about honoring students’ thinking and helping students realize their own progress and growth. Perhaps I should reframe the discussion. Instead of asking teachers to collaborate, maybe the conversation surrounds ways to document and honor students’ technology based work. In this way, I would still be connecting with other teachers in our district, but in a deeper and more philosophical way, I believe. Also, the students would have a teacher who might be looking at their work in a whole new way. Possibly a win-win?? Thoughts?? (This would still take a method such as a Ning but the reasoning behind creating and using the Ning would be different. Does that make sense?)

RE: “approved by tech folks” – we have a quite conservative district, especially for folks like me as sixth grade is on the elementary campuses in our district. Our internet filters block quite a bit. Our superintendent is really beginning to push broader and deeper technology use which I believe will help to make all the processes surrounding tech use more teacher friendly. So, perhaps another teacher is using a particular piece of software, I’ll know that the software has been approved by the tech folks. Also, they like to test out hardware that is connected to the machines, etc. Hope that helps…

How can we expect the format of our schools to change if so many of the teachers in them are not able to make these changes? Due to a sheer lack of technological knowledge countless teachers at my school would be hard pressed to join a networked learning community much less be a leader of one as Carroll envisions. Add to that the fact that re-envisioning ourselves as expert learner first and content expert second will require some significant work on the part of us as teachers. Unfortunately from looking around my school many of colleagues resist any type of change to the teaching style and content that they have had in place for years.

If we ever plan to move in the direction of Carroll’s vision and the first step is, as you said, supporting the shift from content experts to expert learners; the most vital part of this support will be getting the teachers who lack the knowledge or desire to make this change to buy in.

“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow”
-John Dewey

Unfortunately his tomorrow is already here, and some are still teaching like yesterday…what will our tomorrow look like?

Many learners come to virtual spaces without the ability to interact with the ideas of others. If you can’t collaborate in person, how will you do it in the online world?

The skills required to learn in relationship, can indeed be taught within the physical classroom; and it helps if the structures of a classroom highlight the importance of communication.