Jul

24

Where will the change come from?

July 24, 2008 | | Leave a Comment

After enjoying the better part of a week being off the grid, I was working my way through my feedreader this evening, catching up on my network.

One item that caught my eye, mainly because it is something that I have been pondering about for the past week or so, is a post by Jeff Utecht about a conversation he had with his wife.  She postulated that that change in education – real change – will only happen with another Sputnik.  Her analogy was that until the US (and by extension us here in Canada as well) are shocked, scared or otherwise threatened by a perceived threat from outside, there won’t be any real change in the way we teach.

For the past week I have been thinking a lot about Scott Klososky’s keynote at the Laptop Institute conference in Memphis last week.  Scott drew a parallel between Apple’s moving into the void created by the disinterest in change by the traditional music industry to become the major music distributor in the world.  It took a computer company, not a music company, to see the possibilities.

Scott mused that maybe it’ll take the same kind of model to shift the education system.  Maybe as the tradional schools with their industrial model of teaching continue to miss the boat on the shifting nature of the world and, more importantly, our kids, some other entity will move to create a new learning model that will serve these 21st century learners.  It might be someone like Apple or maybe a model like Curriki where the community takes ownership of the learning enterprise.

I am not sure where the change will come from…or when it will come.  One thing is for certain, the tradional model of school, particularly in North America, will become less and less relevant to our youth and their lives as connected global citizens.  While I tend to think the change will come from an entity from within and not a Sputnik from abroad, it will happen.

Are we ready?

tags: technology, education, whipple, learning, scott klososky


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