The latest from dougbelshaw.com/blog
- Technology in History teaching: disseminating good practice in Turkey
- #uppingyourgame v0.4 now available!
- Things I Learned This Week – #11
- A brief history of infographics.
- You’re doing it wrong.
- Seven types of ambiguity and new literacies
- Wednesday Wisdom #10: Application and ability
- HOWTO: Create iTunes audiobooks from MP3s
- #uppingyourgame: an audio preview
- Things I Learned This Week – #10
-
School 2.0 vs School 1.5
13 CommentsIn my Weekly Links last week I brought to your attention a post by fellow NextGen Teacher Jeff Utecht entitled Pedagogy defines School 2.0. The idea behind the ‘School 2.0′ moniker used by various educational writers is that educational institutions need to change to reflect the changing nature of knowledge and society. In what follows I’ll outline my thinking on the subject as well as warn about dangers regarding our seemingly incessant need to label things… :p
I don’t know whether it’s a result of my undergraduate degree in Philosophy or my liberal western upbringing, but I detest boxes: metaphorical ones, that is, into which people want to put me, my family, my school, my country, etc. This is intellectual laziness, either an unwillingness or an inability to grasp the inherent messiness of the world and the human being in particular. A school is no more ‘just’ a building than a church is. An organization consists in the relations between its members. Despite our steadfast attempts to assume continuity in organizations, clubs and teams, the fact is that they change constantly and unavoidably.
This, of course, has a knock-on effect with society. Changing relations is not simply a feature of institutions, it happens in ‘real life’ as well. This means that, in some people’s eyes (including my own) the nature of knowledge is also in a state of constant flux. What is true and unquestioned for one generation is not necessarily so for the next. Communications technology also has an impact upon this: with changes in the way we engage in dialogue with one another comes a change in relationships and in claims to knowledge. I would argue with George Siemens that knowledge is a temporary and somewhat transient justified true belief rather than some end point on the journey where we reach ‘Truth’.
What has this to do with School 2.0? Answer: everything. If knowledge is no longer something fixed, something that can be passed on without modification to future generations, then our relation to knowledge and what we teach in school needs to change. And quickly. Going back to Jeff’s post, he’s absolutely correct when he writes:
School 2.0 needs to be about creating knowledge, analyzing information, and evaluating both. It’s about understanding a world in which connections and communicating with others is at the foundation of how we learn, that through creating our own knowledge not from what a teacher tells us, but rather from what we read, listen to, and watch ourselves is far more powerful.
Schools, like universities, need to become knowledge producers, not just knowledge consumers. With no one perspective being absolutely true, knowledge becomes making sense of the links between various bits of information. This information needs to be extracted under guidance by teachers, who become more like lifeguards than lecturers, as I have discussed before. Wisdom comes later as a kind of meta-knowledge: understanding the links between areas of knowledge across subject disciplines.
What defines School 2.0 is the whole attitude and ethos towards learning of the institution. It’s not about the products but about the process or pedagogy. Teachers need to be equipped to use a variety of tools – some old, some new. To generalize, younger teachers need to learn the art of storytelling, of introducing interpretations and what works, whereas older teachers need to be receptive to the possibilities offered by new technologies and approaches.
It really doesn’t help the conversation to label something as ‘School 2.0′ or merely ‘School 1.5′. To say that something is the latter because it is old-school or an aging technology is to miss the point. It’s the process behind it that’s counts. So using a Powerpoint presentation in class is neither School 1.5 nor School 2.0, it’s how the teacher uses it to underpin the students’ learning and to help them understand that they are knowledge producers, not consumers, that counts.
So let’s have less of whether such-and-such technology is going to lead to ‘School 2.0′ or not. The key to School 2.0 lies in the hearts and minds of people committed to education, to the learning of students, and to changing schools so that they better reflect the needs of our society in the 21st century. One such group is NextGen Teachers. Have you joined us yet? :p
Published on January 17, 2007 · Filed under: Uncategorized;
13 Responses to “School 2.0 vs School 1.5”
-
Thanks for this, Doug – I've been working for a large part of the day today on a presentation I'm giving tomorrow to the great team ofpeople here in Scotland that is working on our new Curriculum for Excellence. This is a genuine attempt by Scottish education to move away from the concept of a big content-laden curriculum, to something that is more like a framework for learning. I was almost finished but needed to find a way to get them thinking about the fundamental differences in society that make such a move necessary, and that must place an understanding of technology at the heart of what we do in education.
You've just given me a great line: "If knowledge is no longer something fixed, something that can be passed without modification to future generations, then our relation to knowledge and what we teach needs to change."
This puts, very succinctly, a point I have been making (much more verbosely) for some time – so, again, thank you! Hope you don't mind me quoting you tomorrow!
-
"All work is released under a Creative Commons 2.5 Sharealike License" – so quote away! :D
I hope the Curriculum for Excellence achieves its targets and you get some decent responses tomorrow. Good luck!
-
Doug, I couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t like when people put me in a box, label me and then put me aside or ignore me because they figure they have me figured out. I also believe that labels create some underlying problems, not in what they say about the people but they say about the people without the labels. So, if one is not a nextgen teacher, one is then the opposite which means? Aren’t you doing to those what you’ve just stated you don’t really appreciate? Does it create an unintentional bias? Much like I dislike the terms “digital immigrant/digital native” mearely because they try to box things into neat little packages that is so unlike the world, I wonder about this term. It makes me think, can I become a nextgen teacher?
The key to School 2.0 lies in the hearts and minds of people committed
to education, to the learning of students, and to changing schools so
that they better reflect the needs of our society in the 21st century.
One such group is NextGen Teachers. Have you joined us yet?What do I have to do? Maybe it’s an over sensitive reaction to something that is of no consequence but as I work as an adminstrator, I see too many people who use these boxes with some pretty nasty consequences. As teachers, do we really want to do that to each other?
I do agree whole heartedly with:
It’s the process behind it that’s counts. So using a Powerpoint
presentation in class is neither School 1.5 nor School 2.0, it’s how
the teacher uses it to underpin the students’ learning and to help them
understand that they are knowledge producers, not consumers, that
counts.
And if the teacher has them write on paper, if it accomplishes the same thing, then let’s give credit – great teachers can touch the mind, heat and soul of students regardless of the tools and can make them stretch and push themselves in many different ways. For me, that’s what this is all about – the kids, not the tools or school 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, ….
Kelly -
Kelly, the aim of NextGen Teachers certainly isn't to exclude people. The only inclusion/exclusion that will happen will be on a self-selection basis – i.e. people not wanting to join the group because they're happy teaching in a 20th-century style to 21st-century kids.
You can be a teacher without it being your job. If I wasn't paid to be a teacher I'd still be a teacher at heart. So yes, Kelly, join NextGen Teachers – get involved in changing the educational landscape! :D
-
Kelly's pointing out, and you're making quite clear in your response, just the point I was trying to make in regards to groups. So we're either with you or against kids? Really? C'mon. You're smarter than that.
-
Bud, you're setting up a false dichotomy. NextGenTeachers is one of a number of groups on the Internet. We've got a specific purpose: to help teachers learn from one another using 21st century tools to motivate 21st century students. You can join our group or not. By not joining it I am not calling you or anybody else a bad teacher.
Many groups exist within my school – different planning groups, etc. I am not part of each one, but I do feel the benefits of each one, and most are open for me to participate in. So it is with NextGenTeachers.
I really do think you're taking this groups/networks thing a bit far… :p
-
I agree — the whole thing's gone too far. But I didn't set up the dichotomy — you did, in your post and comments above. I think you're a smart guy, and a good writer, doing good work — did I misread you?
-
OK, Bud – I'll let you off then… ;)
in order to define a group you have to say what it's not a lot of the time. Perhaps I/we emphasized that a little too much. Our goals are noble!
-
mjevad said on February 4th, 2010 at 3:17 am
1jCC1M mppfwikcpmhy, [url=http://rypxfzkfmgzv.com/]rypxfzkfmgzv[/url], [link=http://jiepuaurmxsu.com/]jiepuaurmxsu[/link], http://hcxfqonyhkig.com/
-
irxgajd said on February 5th, 2010 at 8:22 am
kAnHiC viyuuajjtmvb, [url=http://dvokeratasko.com/]dvokeratasko[/url], [link=http://luqwjboskmsi.com/]luqwjboskmsi[/link], http://tnmihqgfttaj.com/
Leave a Reply
