I was culling my folder entitled “Web discussions” where I store past posts and bits and pieces I’ve cut and pasted for use later on. I came across the words included in me second video presentation; I think I got them off Durff’s Blog, if it wasn’t from there it was someone similarly thoughtful, observant and insightful, but it sounds like Durff to me. Anyway here it is entitled: “School 1.0 v School 2.0 “On your marks…””

Teaching Sagittarian will laugh at me as I still am unable to embed my own videos and Miguel of Around the Corner will no doubt roll his eyes at me as, yes, I used PhotoStory3 yet again. I’m not sure this presentation is going to give Vicki Davies the ‘chills’ like last time, but them I feel this is more of a Die Hard 2 moment rather then a Godfather II. What do you think?

Download: School 1.0 v School 2.0 “On your marks…”

Teaching Sagittarian check this out, I DID IT! (Thanks to the new embed feature for WordPress on TeacherTube )

Here I am on my holidays. A chance, finally to catch up with Wes Fryer’s podcast142 on the speed of creativity website. The one I listened to last night rang true with me as Roger C. Schank spoke about his view of education. All the notes, wikis, blogs, presentation material etc are all available here from on the Speed of Creativity website so I won’t bother re-linking them all to here as they are 2 clicks away.

I wanted instead, to dwell on the concept he was dealing with in terms of creating valuable learning scenarios and not wasting time with the ‘just in case’ teaching that is so prevalent in our education system today.

David Warlick, when he was here for the Learning@schools conference talked about the fact that in New Zealand so much freedom is given over to New Zealand schools and not dictated from the ‘district’ or governmental level that the move towards School2.0, Classroom2.0 and Library2.0 stands a good chance of implementation in NZ schools. I think he was referring to where the purse strings are held. Which is true. However, if I were to share this podcast with staff and colleagues I am sure that there would be much puffing of cheeks and shaking of heads. A fear of unknown sits within our schools…. Even if the principal is progressive and forward thinking there are still those at the senior or middle management level had would vocal in their advocating for status quo.

Roger gave the quote from John Adams “There are two types of education, one will teach how to make a living the other will teach us how to live. “

I happen to agree. What I am most pleased about is that Roger does not leave us high a dry, with the idea that what we are doing is archaic but offers thoughts and suggestions as to how the curriculum for the 21^st Century should look. He stated:

“Writing

Speaking

Reasoning

Getting along with others

Making and executing a plan

Understanding what tools are available to you

Making use of known principles.”

 These are the core competencies. Regardless of whether you are teaching social studies, Science, or electrical engineering, those competencies above are the skills you will need.

So back to the
New Zealand way…. Like John Adams said we need to teach children how to earn a living and how to live, but then it’s very easy to ignore
Adams’ logical approach to education: Him being:

1. So far away
2. American
3. Dead.

But do any of those three reasons make him wrong?

I finally finished it, Don Tapscott’s Growing up Digital book. It cost my $5 in library fines but I finished it.

I use the word finally not to say I battled through the book and it was awful, quite the opposite, it was amazing. I say finally because I’m such a slow reader anyway and this term in school so busy I rarely had chance to pause and pick up the book let alone read it…. Less about me, more about the book.

It clarified several things for me and made raised a few questions too.

1.My Generation

I realised while I was reading this, that my generation “Baby-Bust” according to the book, is a light-weight generation, the fag end of the Boomers so to speak. The situation for me in the
UK when I left school has just been put into some sort of perspective by Don’s writing. There was a reason why jobs were scarce, why finding Saturday jobs was somewhat of a ‘mare even. The experience of my generation was shaped by neither the news cycle of the TV nor global networking. I sat in the in-between time where TV had turned banal and Compact Discs had only just come onto the seen. I relate to the Wedding Singer if anything.

2.Their Generation

Then it got me thinking about my current children, whether it is just the children in my class or those in my primary school. According to Tapscott the Net Generation began in 1980 and runs to 1997 or something, when the book was published. You could argue that the Net Gen continued to the current. Either way the impact of the Net Gen on current school age children could be similar to that of the Baby-Bust. Maybe the current cohort is not Net-Gen but Net-Bust. By the time my class reaches 18 and ready for ‘work’ the oldest Net-Gen will be 38 and filling the jobs, with experience as well as expertise in use of current Net-Tools. What will that mean for my class? They will have to adapt further, be quicker, smarter and even more determined than the Net-Gen. How is that going to impact on my teaching today, tomorrow, next week? I introduced my kids to the concept of a wiki. Check out my class wiki. It is basic, but it has them communicating, sharing and presenting their work online. I’ve begun to look at what ICT teaching looks like for the Primary (Elementary) level. All thoughts and ideas in the comments section below please.

I am looking forward to reading wikinomics and other books. Again suggestions below please. The impact this technology is having on the education of our young people is huge. I would hate for my class to be placed in the have-not category that Tapscott talks about. Does the responsibility for whether they are or not lie with the student, the parent or the teacher?

That wireless keyboard just flicked a switch in Gunit. He loves it. There is a mouse pad on the side which he can now work better than me.

“Can I, can I, can I” is now his mantra. He loves gonig on the wikidspace, just so long  as he can do it using the wireless keyboard.

“I like the keyboard because it has two left moyse keys and it is not like a normal keyboard because on a laptop you use your fingers but on this one you use your thumb.”

The digital classroom enthuses the previously unenthusable. I am not even having to use it as a carrot at this point he just loves it. A big thank you to Sitech required I think for all the cool gear.

Ps. I wish someone would teach me how to embed vodcast and podcast into my blog. I look like such a newbie, but I just can’t figure it out.

1. Let’s assume that all our kids are hot-wired like so many of the kids today are. They are having to ‘power-down’ as the cliché goes when they have to come to school. Their 1000 decisions a minute has turned into 3 per hour. Not good. Are we challenging their thinking? No Are we directing their learning to engage in the digital economy or simply to sit on the fringe, on the dole watch sky sports and playing Halo4. why can’t our kids be ones designing the game, creating that alternate universe? With our sit down, listen up, follow the rules attitude we setting them up to be fruit pickers Watties packers, mashers or mincers. What happened to shooting for the stars and landing on the moon? Lets take a long hard look at these kids futures. The jobs that many of them could potentially get have not even been created. The kids in my class will retire in 2065. Its gonna be whole different world out there then.
2. Ok take lets take a different tack. Let’s assume they are not wired. Some of these kids don’t get access to breakfast at home let alone internet. If they don’t know stuff about the possibilities we can view it in two different lights. Firstly we could say “Hey let’s give them a basic education cover the 3 R’s tick the boxes and move them out Boy’s /Girl’s High let them worry about the future. Or we could say, if these kids are going to get any step up, assistance, helping hand, its going to be from us, the school. We have a primary responsibility for preparing these kids for a their future. Its not a future that we can see right now, not like back in the day, when  I could look at my dad going to work and see my life.  Theirs is future of possibility and wonderment, if they are prepared for it.

So many kids want out. They see the rugby players and the netballers and the movie stars and they think that’s the route to a brighter future. They don’t see the couple of geeks having sold Youtube for $1.65 billion US.

I was born in 1975, graduated in 1993. Back then the world was full of boomers- The boom went from 1945 through to 1968. That’s children being born. By the time I graduated all the jobs were gone. Even the teaching profession had a glut of staff. I remember going for several interviews where they had 65 job applicants per place. I was a baby bust- Tail end of the boom. All the jobs are take.

Well let’s go on 30 years the Net-Generation peaked in 1991.  Since then the birth rate globally has fluctuated. Our kids today could well be looking for a job in the Net-Bust era. What’s going to be the impact on them? Few jobs. They are a going to have to work smarter AND harder to beat those Net Generation kids with years of experience under their belts.

Whichever is the scenario 1 or 2 for our kids we have to act. How we go about it will look very different depending on those children’s access to the Net. The Net is opening up a whole world of possibilities out their, gaming and chat rooms is only the beginning. What are we going to do about it?

These figures are correct to the best of my ability. If you know better please comment.

I digress….

“…there is a dirct relationship between family income and access to computers and the Net. This correlation also exists between the higher- and lower-income schools… our research shows that the digital divide is actually widening, not disappearing. As the new technology trickles into poorer neighbourhoods and schools, the better of children are leapfrogging others- getting not only better access, but a wider range of services, faster access, ther best technology, and, most importantly, increasing motivation, skills and knowledge. This not only exacerbates the fluency gap but also the gap in different economic classes’ capacity to learn and have successful lives. Have-not become know-nots and do-nots.”

David spoke of his schooling and how 80% ish of his class went to work in the mill to do repetitive work, closely supervised. It got me thinking about what are we preparing our students for, are we assuming, and grooming them accordingly, they will be working at Watties. Yes these are Net Gen kids but to be honest, because of their socio-economic position are we not in danger of ‘writing them off’ in a “Look at their dad to see their future” sort of way.

Funding is different for decile 1 schools, and rightly so. But I ask the question, is it enough? If we are hoping against hope for these kids to be ‘successful’, whatever that looks like in the future, we’d better be supporting them in their learning Web 2.0. For whatever their future holds, straight up, it’ll be measured in gigabytes.

Those key competencies are great, and they have their place, just like the subjects, but there is a whole lot of digital literacy et al. out there that needs to be grasped and utilised if these kids are to be Life-long learners.