I agree it is important to provide the best practice possible. The onset of new technologies has opened up a brand new world of teaching technologies and methods. It is important to help students understand, use and adapt this technology for themselves. I also agree the world is being 'flattened'. We are one global community.
What I don't buy is the fear this book is putting off. Learn or we will lose jobs. 'They' are harder working, smarter, faster, and they are coming for our lunch. Teach, or die. I've just seen enough general panic in my life to remain unruffled by this. Trust me. I've survived Satanists, nuclear war, Y2K, and a reactor in Switzerland. What is the worst that will happen from this? I'll have a neighbor named Diment and another named Zeng. I, and the United States, will be better for it.
Yes, in some comparisons, Uncle Sam looks like he is getting whipped. Just because a car pulls forward at a stop sign doesn't mean you are driving in reverse. I see the process as a normalizing of the worlds intellectual and economic resources. The people that struggle with this are those that believe that the United States clawed its way to the top over all these other nations. In actuality, we didn't pull ahead; all the others went in reverse at a stoplight called World War II. With all the other players roughed up a bit, we were able to advance in their stead. It didn't hurt that we had access to a relatively raw Western Hemisphere to work with.
So, I agree with Chapter One, except for the heavy underlying xenophobia. We have a responsibility to educate for the individual's sake. When that is taken care of, the institutional mass takes care of itself. We need to teach web 2.0 so the students can be creative, productive and literate citizens of the world. When they can do that, I am sure they will make their employers happy.
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Hmmm. I didn't get that from the chapter at all. I took it to mean that our kids and a significant part of the world have already left the station as far as integrating and immersing in tech and that we as an educational monolith (and you have to admit that education is slow to change and that we cling hard to our traditions) are in danger of becoming fundamentally irrelevant to our students and to the realities of the new economic realities.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your perspective on the chapter.
Ann
The importance to prepare a workforce for competition is mentioned in the introduction and in a couple of sections of the first chapter. I do agree with the need to develop best practice. I don't agree that we need best practices to create the best product.
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