Tag Archives: 21st Century Skills

Two old but not too old links | Year-end Food for Thought

I have two sources of inspiration for you.

One is a video… Brave New World Wide Web.  It compares 20th century learning with 21st century learning.  It was originally posted in 2008, but is still relevant today.  I hope it gets you thinking about one small change you can make to bring yourself forward.  I can help and support you in that process.

 

 

http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/

The second is a blog post from December of 2009, but it’s still fitting and good food for thought…

21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020.

via dasdlisd.wordpress.com

I was planning on sharing the link to Shelly Blake-Plock’s, @TeachPaperless’, post (a year old today and still very insightful), ’21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020′ anyway, but here it has been put together with my Brave New World Wide Web video on the DeDorest Area School District blog.

It amazes me that on blip.tv where it was first posted, the video has never in 2 years and 2 months had a ‘zero’ day… it has had a long-tail audience and every couple months it gets a spike in viewings as someone else shares it. All told, at several sites, it has probably been viewed over 40,000 times and downloaded over 500 times since I put it online. I realize that a cat sneezing on YouTube can get 150,000 views in less time than that, but this story of a personal journey into the world of edtech, and what it offered to me as an educator, has a very specific audience and I’m humbled by it’s reception… even 2 years later.

elearnspace › It’s New! It’s New! › George Siemens

It is my main critique with the emotional-feel-good message of Ken Robinson’s focus on creativity. First, we need to get over the view that our generation is astonishingly unique. Hasn’t every generation faced new technologies to solve problems not foreseen? The present moment arrogance that invades much of school reform thinking is frustrating. And, I might as well add, the pendulum-thinking mindset that is evident in Robinson’s view is damaging in the long term. If a view of educational reform is defined by the current reality that it is reacting against, rather than a holistic model of what it will produce in the future, then we’re playing a game of short-term gains, planting in our revolution the seeds for the next revolution that will push back against gains that we make now.

… Developing capacity for complexity. Complexity is the DNA of society. Whenever multiple agents interact, outcomes are uncertain. Failure to account for complexity in organizational design, teacher preparation, and business planning is a short path to frustration. Yes, it would be nice if the world was complicated – like a puzzle where every piece has a right place. But it’s not. It’s complex – like a weather system where changes in one aspect of the system cascades and influences the entire system, often in unpredictable ways. Unfortunately, complexity is not built into the educational system. We seek “general right answers” rather than “contextual right answers”.

via elearnspace.org

The pendulum-thinking issue has been on my mind, but I have not been able to express it as well as George does here. It reminds me of the dichotomized digital native vs digital immigrant issue which can also be counter-productive.

I also wonder how many ‘rules’ and ‘expectations’ are created because of present moment arrogance? Are filters our equivalent of book burnings? Are our subject blocks created by a parochial curriculum? Are typing skills equivalent to quill pen skills of the past? How is our arrogance counter-revolutionary?

In the second section, I love the puzzle vs weather system metaphor! Using a metaphor exemplifies contextual complexity!