How Will I Approach Teaching in the 21st Century?

More than ever, today's students feel that they have to learn how to jump through the right hoops to be "successful" at school.  The following video shows that Digital Natives long to share their ideas and their creations through technology but that schools typically do not give them that opportunity.

“Digital technology brings richness to learning” (Bill Gates)--"How much 'richness' does your curriculum give your students," the video concludes.  It gives one pause, doesn't it?  I, for one, don't want my students to say, “I have to power down when I come to school.”  My hope with this site is that students will not have to power down when they come into my classroom.  If my classroom includes Tweets, Facebook updates, and Google+ discussions, that classroom loses its four walls and becomes truly a part of the www.com
  Whatever, Whenever, Wherever

Much resistance to the use of technology in education springs forth from ignorance, and I must admit that some of my notions are being challenged by what I'm seeing.  For example, I'm one of those people who wishes that he could go back to a time when the world was simpler and life was good.  Sometimes I'd like to go "off the grid," as they say, so that my family and I could live on a farm somewhere, grow everything we eat, and enjoy life's simple beauties.  The following video reminds me, however, that “The most important thing for kids growing up today is the love of embracing change.”  Perhaps the most important thing for teachers today would be to embrace the changes that technology is bringing to us.

Before I sign off for the day, let me end by saying that it is understandable that many people in the education world are hesitant to use more technology.  Often technology is billed as something that will give our students the skills and tools they need to "be successful members of the workforce of tomorrow."  When people like me hear that, we say, "What ever happened to passion for ideas and learning for learning's sake?"  And this is just what I like about the MacArthur Foundation video.  It agrees and concludes that the main reasons we should use more technology in the classroom is that it can be used to foster creativity and civic involvement.  And that's just what Digital Natives long for.
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To blog, or not to blog. That is the question.

To blog, or not to blog. That is the question.

For quite some time I have been hesitant to start a blog simply because I thought that it would be a bit presumptuous to assume that people would want to hear what I have to say. When we want to learn about what’s going on in the world, don’t we listen to the evening news or turn on NPR to hear what the experts have to say? That was the world I grew up in, no doubt. But then my world was rocked in 2006. When it came time for Time Magazine to name The Person of the Year, they didn’t pick Bill and Melinda Gates for their world-changing philanthropic work, or Condaleeza Rice, or even the founders of Skype, although this last possibility gives us a hint as to who they did pick. The 2006 Person of the Year was “YOU.” You, because we had finally entered the era of the individual coming to the forefront, self-publishing, and changing the face of the world. You and I had come onto the scene publishing our take on the world on our Facebook (2004) pages, web pages, the newly created and intoxicating YouTube (2005), and, yes, Blogs (Blogger, 2003).

Why is that the world cares what I think? Do my puny publications and creations make a difference in the world of the 21st Century? The answer is a resounding “yes!” With Web 2.0 applications, each person is able to share his or her unique take on the world, and the insights are appealing to us because they are more human. Rather than go to Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, we turn to Julie Powell’s blog on her experience trying to cook all 524 recipes in Child’s book in a 365 day time period. Because Julie was so human (startlingly human, I discovered when I took a look at the blog at http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/), people where interested in cooking French dishes because they could see themselves, also struggling real people, engaged in the experience. And what about the goings on in the politcal world? Again, what the professional newscaster has to say is somewhat removed from our individual lives. As my students so often say, “How does that relate to my life?” When someone blogs about what is going on in Egypt or Libya, I can see myself responding to those pivotal world events.

And what about teaching? How well I remember those mind-numbing education classes I took in college because they were so dry, so theoretical. Or, rather, I don’t remember the content. All remember is the negative emotion associated with the experience. What mattered–what truly taught me about being an effective teacher–was following the stories of my classmates and their student teaching experiences and, of course, and the stories of other teachers when I was a student teacher and first year teacher. Blogs fulfill this same role. I learn so much more following a teacher’s blog than I do reading a textbook on the theory of teaching. That fellow teacher is the Julie Powell in my area of expertise, and in that blogger’s postings I can see myself as I walk through the doings of my life. Who I am becomes significant as I vicariously experience the significant life of another human being. And then I, too, start to see that what I do is relevant in this world, and I become a participant rather than a bystander. The world becomes the world of me. And I, as well as you--well, we become the People of the Year.