"Increasing globalization continues to affect the way we work, collaborate, and communicate. Information technologies are having a significant impact on how people work, play, gain information, and collaborate. Increasingly, those who use technology in ways that expand their global connections are more likely to advance, while those who do not will find themselves on the sidelines. With the growing availability of tools to connect learners and scholars all over the world -- online collaborative workspaces, social networking tools, mobiles, voice-over-IP, and more -- teaching and scholarship are transcending traditional borders more and more all the time."
Self-learning: Today’s learners are self-learners. They browse, scan, follow links in mid-paragraph to related material. They look up information and follow new threads. They create their own paths to understanding.
Horizontal structures: Rather than top-down teaching and standardized curriculum, today’s learning is collaborative; learners multitask and work out solutions together on projects. Learning strategy shifts from a focus on information as such to learning to judge reliable information. It shifts from memorizing information to finding reliable sources. In short, it shifts from learning that to learning how.
From presumed authority to collective credibility: Reliance on the knowledge authorities or certified experts is no longer tenable amid the growing complexities of collaborative and interdisciplinary learning. A key challenge in collaborative environments will be fostering and managing levels of trust.
A de-centered pedagogy: To ban or limit collective knowledge sources such as Wikipedia in classrooms is to miss the importance of collaborative knowledge-making. Learning institutions should instead adopt a more inductive, collective pedagogy based on collective checking, inquisitive skepticism, and group assessment.
Networked learning: Learning has traditionally often assumed a winner-take-all competitive form rather than a cooperative form. One cooperates in a classroom only if it maximizes narrow self-interest. Networked learning, in contrast, is committed to a vision of the social that stresses cooperation, interactivity, mutual benefit, and social engagement. The power of ten working interactively will invariably outstrip the power of one looking to beat out the other nine.
"To truly bring educational institutions to the next stage of distributed and networked learning (which is the future!), we have to start by killing LMSs and investing that money and more into people how can work with faculty, staff, and students to re-imagine the art of teaching, learning, and sharing in relationship to that little thing most LMSs seem to disregard all together: the internet! We have been learning in the clean, well-lighted space of Wal-Mart’s parking lots for far too long, let’s go to a camp site, if not the wilderness, and rough it for a bit so that we can actually enjoy the very reason why we started on this trip in the first place, the democratic vistas of possibility!"
We need to move students being knowledgeable to knowledge-able. This is not simply a technological revolution, this is a cultural revolution. ~ Michael Wesch @ Desire2Learn Fusion, 2009
“The technology will be used to create learning communities among students in new ways,” Mr. Regier said. “People are correct when they say online education will take things out the classroom. But they are wrong, I think, when they assume it will make learning an independent, personal activity. Learning has to occur in a community.”
Chris Lehmann (Principal of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia): gave this talk (Progressive Pedagogy & 21st Century Tools) (Research, Collaborate/Network, Create, Present, Reflect) at NECC in 2009:
I am in need of articles that describe classrooms of the future.
visions of tomorrow's classrooms - not only K-12 but also perhaps from a collegiate level. I'd also be interested in more than one philosophy - rather than all tech, are there other philosophies which value the old fashion person-to-person interaction? It might also be beneficial to have a perspective from the business world which addresses what their needs are and whether or not students are coming out of the education systems prepared with those hard and interpersonal skills. What are colleges looking for, and will their admissions policies support or hinder this vision. I'm interested in on-line, global, anytime/anywhere, face to face/traditional, specialized tutors......
Here's what I shared:
Great question! Here are some possibly relevant resources, with pull quotes to give you a flavor of the content:
Scott McLeod's The Status Quo No Longer Suffices "The new educational paradigm requires an emphasis on critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving, creativity and innovation, information fluency and media literacy, data synthesis and analysis, and the applied use of many other higher-level cognitive skills, much more frequently than we currently are doing in our classrooms."
Wendy Drexler on personal learning, drive, & autonomy: http://teachweb2.blogspot.com/2010/05/personal-learning-drive-and-autonomy.html "I'm intrigued by the possibility of a renaissance of self-direction. I feel I've been able to build that reality in my personal learning and professional work, and I want even greater empowerment for the next generation. More importantly, I believe those learners who are less autonomous will be at a distinct disadvantage."
Description of "classrooms of the future" at the University of Minnesota: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/13/active-learning-classrooms/ "Students at the University of Minnesota are getting a feel for what could be the classroom of the future. The brand new Science Teaching building on the university's Minneapolis campus is to home 17 active learning classrooms, more than any other college in the country."
Designer Trung Le asks "Why Can't We Be In Kindergarten for Life? "Many schools and work environments are embracing the reality that we live in multidisciplinary global world. The challenges and opportunities that we face in the 21st century require creativity, innovation and a deeper understanding of the complexities of the global economy, politics and culture. The kindergarten classroom fosters an environment where these values can be introduced and then thrive. Let's make the kindergarten studio the new paradigm for learning environment—a natural extension of our innate human capacity to create and learn by doing."
Educating for Citizenship by Caryn McTighe Musil (vice president for diversity, equity, and global initiatives, Association of American Colleges and Universities) "Many campuses have begun literally and figuratively to remove wrought iron fences demarcating sharp geographic, social, and intellectual boundaries between the academy and their communities." http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-sp03/pr-sp03feature1.cfm
The approach of those schools who are able to "professionally produce" student-driven learning shows the same adaptability of pedagogy, notably from my recent trips to Albany Senior High, Auckland. Gever Tulley's Tinkering School and the kindergarten kids in Lanarkshire, Scotland, are further examples ofwhat's possible when you reverse the point of the professional in the room: the professional is there to "tilt projects towards completion", as Gever puts it, not professionally produce the learning and 'deliver' it to learners.
“IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education and Work,” is hyperlinked to hundreds of articles written from many perspectives and includes mixed media and moderated comments in each section.
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