Symposium 2006, hosted by the Western Regional Computer Advisory Committee featured two incredibly motivating keynote speakers.
Despite not everything (like the weather) cooperating, those in attendance listened intently to the messages delivered by Marc Prensky and David Pogue.
Pogue predicted five technologies for the next five years. He has a great job. Companies send him stuff and he reviews it. What a great way to make a living and also to have insights for what's coming in technology. You need to go no further than the nearest shopping mall to see what's going to have a huge impact. Is there anything more ubiquitous than the telephone?
This followed Marc Prensky's talk entitled "Engage Me or Enrage Me". Certainly, there are few things more engaging to today's student than the telephone and being connected at the instant that it's needed.
What was sad was the notion that students need to power down when they come to school. With telephones and internet connectivity, their world is one of enhanced collaboration and resources. Sure, we preach collaboration but it's pretty difficult when we expect it right after we power off or filter out their tools!
The tools and the software that we provide in the education space needs to honour the engagement that students so badly crave. Software that lets you fill in the blanks electronically is no more engaging than the fill in the blanks paper sheets that bored us to tears in our education. Similarly, Powerpoint slide after Powerpoint slide is only a passing nod to the technology that presents it. In a way, it may be a step backwards from putting an acetate slide on an overhead projector. It certainly is more of a challenge to set up the video connections and it's pretty difficult to click past an overhead slide!
Recently, in one of the newsgroups that I read, there was a discussion about how to determine whether a project submitted was a student's original work or whether it was the result of cheating.
It does make you wonder about the whole concept of a single person, a single mark. With all of the collaborative tools that are available, is it reasonable to expect that each student is required to see a project or document through from the beginning to the end completely by him/herself?
It seems to me that more powerful learning will happen when students collaborate with the appropriate tools toward a final project that will be richer and more indepth than what they could achieve alone. The other aspect should be the format. It also seems to me that a paper product is a concept that needs to be discarded. By putting something on paper, you're sending a definitive message that the project is done. In this day and age and technology, is anything ever done?
This newsletter, for example, is an ongoing endeavour. It started as a paper product that really and truly had a deadline. Like most things in this electronic age, it has evolved to take advantage of the technology. While it appears on the first of the month, it is actually authored during the month from a number of different locations. My naming conventions are so predictable and I've had more than one person comment on works in progress as they look ahead to next month's issue.
I couldn't do that with old tools. Neither should our students have to.
Our students have new tools that include internet access, cell phones, memory keys, electronic organizers, portable audio and video players. We won't fully engage them until we find a way to shed the tools of the past and find some way to incorporate the tools of the future.
Finally, I want to share this picture of good friend Kerry Withrow, David Pogue and myself trying to dig out my car in London. The weather sure wasn't cooperating.
