Some Reading on "Change" and Education

I found this blog post earlier today in a conversation in Google's new "Buzz." The conversation was started by Will Richardson, the author of our text book. It has generated lots of discussion there, and in the linked article here, there are some good comments to the post.

The article is about changing our perceptions of the role of education, not about the tools.

"Educators at all levels have not understood that learning is no longer about the past, as Bush’s memex was. It is no longer primarily about what has been said and done and described and proved, but, importantly, is about what is being said, and what is being done, and what is being described and what has not yet been proven."

Part of the reason I am writing this post is because I am working on a presentation tentatively titled, "Just Because it is an Online Class Doesn't Mean We Can't Have Field Trips, Right?" My main point is that we do not often talk about online classes having components that ask students to go somewhere, individually or in small groups, and complete some task. Most often the work is on the computer or out of a book. There was a couple sentences in this article that seem to reflect that need and how it is already happening.

"Almost certainly the shift to the present progressive instead of the past tense explains the growth of “high-impact learning experiences,” such as field work (or lab work), internships, semesters abroad, service learning, collaborative learning, experiential learning, authentic assessment, problem-based learning and many more examples. In all cases, students are acting not as repeaters of known content but as creators of new content."

It is a good read, and I am going to go read As We May Learn tomorrow.