Setting the Stage Reflection

First of all wow! We watched the “Did You Know? 2.0” video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U) to start off the school year and it still is shocking to me as I watched it again for this week's assignment. It’s exciting and scary all at once how much our world is changing from a general perspective, but even more so from an educational perspective.(On another note...I am thinking of showing this video to my students during the first couple days of school - lots of good discussions here!)

I graduated from high school in 2003, but when I think back to my high school experience, even in the past 7 years the world has changed tremendously. Cell phones were just becoming popular – it was fairly common to have one in high school, but no one younger than high school had a cell phone – now I swear I’ve seen 7 year olds with cell phones. You would never have thought to text during class – no one really started texting yet. My teachers mainly used direct instruction and (at least in the accelerated classes) the students sat there and did what they were asked…or at least that’s how I remember it. We used the computers sometimes, but mainly for paper writing or making a presentation. I feel like my generation was the generation where technology started to pick up a lot (for the common public) and as a result my peers look for how to use technology for it’s purposes – we find something new and just figure out how it works.

Now my students are so used to always having technology that they just expect me to tell them exactly how to use a new tool (a good portion of them do at least). My students now are constantly connected, but mainly in the realm of entertainment – many don’t know how to use technology for educational or even trustworthy informational purposes. This is all a new challenge – I may be close to their age and understand the technology boom, but growing up it was a privilege to have a computer and internet – now it seems like everyone has one.

I think what scares me most about all of this change is the way our educational system is responding. As our textbook spoke of, we often times just try to incorporate new technology because it is the “thing to do,” we don’t always make sure that what we are trying is the best and most beneficial way to bring to enhance our content. We need to somehow find a way to slow down and re-evaluate what we are doing – what is the best way to help our students learn to think critically, collaborate, use technology, adapt, problem solve, etc? But at the same time, we don’t have time to slow down too much – the world is changing and we need to find an effective way to meet that change. We need to allow our students to understand the globalization that is our “new” reality.

At the same time WE need to understand our “new” reality. India and China are now huge players in our world, but they run very differently than we run. Many countries only fully educate the top of the population, we educate everyone. We can’t throw away everything we’ve been doing and say that it is useless – we need to refine what we are doing – we need to help our students understand their role in the world, the need for them to think critically and the need for them to collaborate effectively. We need to find a way to make all of this relevant to our students.

I don’t think we are too far behind to catch up, as some may – I do however think that we are at an important junction – one where we can choose to keep doing what we’ve been doing for years or one where we can strive to show our students how technology and the necessary skills (that I mentioned before…adaptability, critical thinking, problem solving, etc) are relevant to them through authentic learning. We need to expose our students to the reality of our flattening world and challenge them with what they will contribute. We need to provide our students opportunities to create and help them know how to respond and organize. Our students can compete in this flattening world and we need to support them by giving them real experiences that reflects our flattening world.