Was catching up on some of my blog reading and came across a post over on Jeff Utecht’s “The Thinking Stick“…he was talking about this new (?) idea of “School 2.0″…I have heard the term bandied about on a number of blogs recently and, honestly, it’s something I have made a note to find out more about what people are thinking/saying/writing…but thought I would share at least this tidbit to maybe start some conversations…
Jeff writes…
School 2.0 although driven to change by the advancement of technology is not about technology, it’s about the advancement of society, of our culture as a world. Technology played a large part, but it is society that has changed. Everything from out-sourcing work to Asia, to the built in GPS in your car, to the phone/pda/web/music/video/picture iphone. Society has changed that’s why a new school is needed. If you think schools need to change because of technology…I’d argue you have it wrong. Schools need to change because our society has changed.
A triple into the corner!
Jeff captures exactly why radical surgery is needed in our learning institutions…schools are the last bastion of the industrial age. Look around…for better or worse, we cannot continue to deny (as some educators do) that our world is not changing; rapidly and completely.
To maintain an education system designed to serve the past will only spell a crisis for our future and, more importantly, the future of our children. We MUST begin now. It is not about the technology, but rather how we impart the critical skills for tomorrows citizenry…the information skills that will be the construction tools of the next century.
None of us have all the answers, but we can only begin through the conversations that are happening in these parts…but we need to get more people involved in telling the new story.
Simply digitizing what we do now is not the answer…that is simply upgrading School 1.0 to School 1.5…we need a whole new version, a fresh model, a new approach centered on us coming together as a community of learners to blur the lines between “students” and “teachers”.
technorati tags: education, utecht, technology, school 2.0
Jeff,
is a web site launched by the Department of Education in the States. A good place to start when trying to wrap your head around the next generation of education. The site looks more at what school 2.0 might look like in the physical sense. With the APA coming out with the remix of Bloom’s Taxonomy, we start really looking at the pedagogy side of school 2.0. Of course you can’t change a pedagogy without a physical building that supports the new learning…and and new building structure can’t affect change without a true look at our educational practices….it’s one big ugly transformation that needs to happen at the same time.
Thanks for the conversation!
Sorry the web site is http://www.school2-0.org
I’ve been doing a series of audio interviews on School 2.0 at http://www.EdTechLive.com/recordings+list. You might find them interesting.
Also meant to mention: have a wiki at http://school20.wikispaces.com that includes a page with a blog search feed on variations on “school 2.0” terms. Cheers.