Learning for the 21st Century

In their report, the partnership of 21st Century skills discusses the need for relevance in education. The idea of education needing to be relevant is not new. What is new; however, is what relevance means for the current generation of kids. Not only are they very technologically and digitally savvy; but they are use to a life style much different than the traditional classroom. They are use to being very social and interactive with their peers. They are use to multi-media and multi-tasking. This background has huge ramifications for education. For a detailed outline of this article, see my 830 Wiki. Also, look at the image below for a mind map of the article.

Growing Up With Google

In her article, Growing Up With Google, Dr. Oblinger describes a generation that grew up with the internet and how that has shaped their psyches. These net genners as they are called have, among other things, a high need to communicate and collaborate--and not just one on one. She goes on to describe what impact this has for education. Being I am in a Corporate environment, I see it also having a huge impact to the Corporate world as these net genners enter the work force. In our Company, we rely very heavily on email and the telephone for communications (and a smattering of IM). The net genners; however, rely much more heavily on IM and social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. I can foresee generational issues with communications--especially in team project situations. We have been trying for several years to increase the use of collaborative tools--primarily Sharepoint--with very little luck. I would imagine the net genners would find it both incomprehensible and frustrating to encounter such resistance toward technological collaboration. I foresee a lot of learning happening in the next several years.

The World is Flat Project

I was very impressed with what these students did with the World is Flat project. Using a wiki for structure, they created an extensive library of videos that, taken togehter, examine not only what the World Wide Web is but also what it means for society. The particular episode I reviewed (see my specific comments on my class wiki 830 wiki) was an interview / debate between two classic points of view: the individual who believes the Internet is the be all and end all for his or her world and the individual who believes that books still hold a special place in this World.

The producer of the video was the off camera narrator / moderator, asking each individual questions, follow up questions, offers to rebuttal. It was quite effectively done. Most of the shots were tightly framed and really allowed you to see who the interviewees felt about what they were saying. It did a good job of capturing their emotions and not just their words. Also, it did a good job of illustrating that there are always more than one side to any issue.

Emerging Technologies

As pointed out in this week's reading, emerging technologies can have a significant impact on instructors, students, and the entire learning process. One aspect brought out by the author that I find very interesting is the way emerging technologies can promote facilitation and the impact that has on the process. A key premise of the author is that in order to maximize the value that emerging technology can produce in terms of promoting facilitation, the instructor must transition their pedagogical strategy from one of being a lecturer to one of being a facilitator. Although this may seem relatively self evident, the process itself is not necessarily trivial. Based on my own research for my 894 project, the problem can be two pronged. Not only are many instructors quite familiar and comfortable with the 'brick and mortar' classroom and lecturer style of teaching; but also, they are quite unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the many technologies that are typically deployed in the online environment to foster to foster collaboration among students. So I thoroughly agree with the author's suggestion that a support mechanism must be in place to help the instructor with the transition from lecturer to facilitator. I would just add that such support must take into account not only the mechanics of using the new technology; but also the pedagogical strategy for using the new technology. Both can be new for the instructor and both need to be learned before the instructor can realize the full potential of the online learning environment.

Week 3: class reflection

Tonight's class was interesting. Having another remote student online--Eric--added a nice dimension to the experience. We did not have as much collaboration as the tool would allow; but I think that could be built up with experience. Also, the listening experience was great and I did get a lot out of the class from that. If we can only find a way to allow me to interact more with the class as a whole...

Week 3: Connected Specialization

This week's readings reinforced something I have known for awhile about me--I am an auditory learner. For some reason, I reflect best on material that I listen to--like the Siemens podcast.

A topic that really hit home for me was the idea of connected specialization--the networks we form with the people we feel have the knowledge that we are interested in. At first, it sounds a little like a community of learning; however it is different. A community of learning usually decides on a common topic or purpose and then works on that. In connected specialization, I chose a 'topic' for me; but no one else in my network needs to actively work on that topic for me. All members have their own agendas and each member gleans from the group that which is of interest to him or her and ignores that which is not.

Week 2: Connectivism and the information explosion

People have always said "necessity is the mother of invention" and that seems to hold true for education also. In George Seimens post about connectivism, he discusses the explosive increase in the rate of knowledge creation and the "inventions" within education that have appeared to help accommodate this explosion. A primary mechanism is the ability to share both knowledge retrieval and knowledge creation. Today, with all the Web 2.0 technologies available to us, we share known knowledge across the web. In addition, we can now collaborate on the knowledge creation process across both time and space with such tools as this blog.

Week 2: An online student in an unonline world

Last night I was the sole online student for the itec830 class. I have taken itec online classes before and usually there are one or two others online. It can get lonely when you are the only one online. It helped immensely that Joshua--even though he was physically in the classroom--was performing as an online student. For the most part, I was able to follow classroom conversations, however I was not able to participate too effectively in them. One thing that would have been nice is to form a small team during the breakout session that included me and two or three of the inclass students, but interacting over Elluminate. Maybe we can try that next week. I do find online interactions in small groups quite effective for learning.