"We need to teach using the tools our students use"
Cultural changes in learning…they’re happening but is it here?
Alan November says: We have to stop spoon feeding kids curriculum tests and homework. They need to be self directed. They need to be life long learners., which means they need to be empowered to manage more and more and more of their own learning. [...]
It is not about adding technology… because we add a lot of technology that improves teaching, but it does not improve learning.[...]
The biggest barrier is not technology, the tools or money. The biggest barrier is a culture of the shift of control from the teacher managing learning (creating dependent learners by the way) to a culture of students being inter-dependent while they are globally connected and contributing content, tutorials, to the whole classroom. We are witnessing the shift towards globally connected students at this school right in front of our eyes. IT IS a shift of culture. IT IS a shift of what a “classroom” means. IT IS about empowering students AND teachers by exposing them to all the possibilities that are within reach through available tools.
Via Langwitches blog
Are you seeing this cultural shift in YOUR school? I see some very minor signs, I see some people thinking about it and trying to start implementation of the shift in their lessons and classrooms. But as always, we have the HQ staff saying, ‘we’ll do this and we’ll do that’ yet never sharing what they see and hear on their many CPD trips outside our area. Nor do we see them investing in the infrastructure we need as well as training. After all we need GLOW yet 90% of the kids can’t get access in school because they can’t get on PCS. We also see many ‘initiatives’ and many fine words about 21st C learning coming from people who’ve never taught in their lives or were last in a classroom before PCs were installed!We need to STOP, get the hardware, software and CULTURAL changes sorted and then get cracking….or we’ll be left behind.
As Barack Obama recently said in a weekly address to his nation: “the country that out educates us will out perform us”
Cultural change in the way we learn as teachers and students IS coming or is already in place in many countries – time to catch up Scotland!
About the author
23 years as a soldier in many locations worldwide from Northern Ireland to Hong Kong to the Middle East and the Falklands. Currently teaching English and dabbling in the use of IT in learning - trying to give my students the skills and mindsets needed for the 21st Century.
| Print article | This entry was posted by admin on 21 March 2010 at 11:05, and is filed under Education - Future. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
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about 4 months ago
Dave,
Great comment as usual, and no punches pulled. I like it. I think Alan November gets it absolutely right when he talks about that cultural shift. It is explicit in Curriculum for Excellence so we have the ‘mandate’ for change. I also agree that it’s not really about the technology, but on the other hand if teachers and kids don’t have hardware, don’t have internet access, and don’t have leaders who are able to make it happen for them, it remains very difficult. It will be down to people like yourself to keep the pressure on. Keep speaking out.