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Learning with the Read/Write Web

Teacher as “Global Celebrity”Yesterday

I’m not sure this will ever come to pass, but talk about standing the world on its end. Chris Anderson of Wired and Ted answers the question “What Will Change Everything” with this: “The Web Empowered Revolution in Teaching“.

For one thing, the realization that today’s best teachers can become global celebrities is going to boost the caliber of those who teach. For the first time in many years it’s possible to imagine ambitious, brilliant 18-year-olds putting ‘teacher’ at the top of their career choice list. Indeed the very definition of “great teacher” will expand, as numerous others outside the profession with the ability to communicate important ideas find a new incentive to make that talent available to the world. Additionally every existing teacher can greatly amplify their own abilities by inviting into their classroom, on video, the world’s greatest scientists, visionaries and tutors. (Can a teacher inspire over video? Absolutely. We hear jaw-dropping stories of this every day.)

Whoa.

CoveritLive Mobile TestJanuary 5

Response to Jay Matthews at the Washington PostJanuary 5

Jay Matthews wrote a piece in the Post this morning titled “The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st Century Skills” to which I replied what follows. Would be interested to hear your thoughts, here or there…

I don’t disagree that the majority of “21st Century Skills” are nothing new, and that we should have been teaching them all along. As computer and online technologies evolve, we have more tools that we can use to teach those skills in perhaps more relevant or compelling ways. But that depends on the teacher’s familiarity and comfort level with those technologies, obviously.

What is different here, though, is something that is not being articulated by the Partnership or many others, and that is the learning that can be done (and is being done already) using online social tools and networks. I’d point you to a recent MacArthur Foundation study which concludes that “New media forms have altered how youth socialize and learn” and that this has very important implications for schools and teaching (http://tinyurl.com/55a878, pdf). While most kids’ uses of these technologies are “friendship based”, the more compelling shift is when their use is “interest based” or when they connect with other kids or adults around the topics or ideas they are passionate to learn about. With access to t

Social Media “Using Our Kids”January 3

Just for the record, I love this quote by Michael Wesch:

We use social media in the classroom not because our students use it, but because we are afraid that social media might be using them - that they are using social media blindly, without recognition of the new challenges and opportunities they might create.

Emphasis on the opportunities. I think this is a key part of making the case to teachers and schools as to why we absolutely need to consider these technologies and make them a part of our own practice. But the other key here is that we as educators cannot use social media blindly here either. Whether we think it’s a game changer or not, we have to understand how our kids could experience the world if they use these technologies well.

Looking Back, Looking Forward; Slow Blogging, Slow ChangeJanuary 2

Happy 2009!

I did some counting yesterday. Totalled up all of the blog posts and comments on those posts for the last three years, and found a pretty interesting relationship. Seems the less I write, the more people comment. (Click the picture to view my first “pencast” on the subject and to get the numbers if you want them.)

Hmmmm…

Now I know that there may be a host of explanations for this, and certainly, the reasons for the reduced number of posts at least are pretty obvious to me. In order, my work with PLP, the craziness of my schedule last year, the desire to spend time playing with kids vs. blogging when not on the road, and Twitter. In short, I’m just not the blogger that I used to be by more than half over three years ago if you’re just totaling up the numbers. Yet, somewhat surprisingly to me, there’s more conversation. I know this isn’t just happening here; it’s not unusual to find comment threads of over 25 or 30 in various places around the edublogosphere. And while I’d like to think that my ideas are getting more compelling or stickier (or maybe more debatable), I think most of it is just Twitter. The somewhat bizarre reality of my Twitt