A few months back, prompted by Jeff Utecht, I compared what could be labelled School 1.5 (doing old things in new ways) with School 2.0 (doing new things in new ways). The thinking in the edublogosphere at the time seemed to be that we need to move away from doing 1.5 things towards 2.0 things. I thought the distinction wasn’t great at the time, so am putting forward another metaphor for your consideration…… :p

So far as I understand it, when software is released it undergoes point revisions. For example, the software that powers this blog – Wordpress – is due to release a new version in the next week or so. This will be version 2.3 and will add a few little features and fix some annoying bugs. There won’t be any massive stand-out ‘wow’ kind of things, though. On the other hand, when major releases come out – such as, for example, Wordpress 3.0, think a whole new interface, and the ‘wow’ factor being present in spades… :)

The thing that means that software can’t go from 1.0 to 2.0 straight away is that things emerge: conversations and interactions have to take place, testing has to be done, and suggestions made. It’s the same with schools: pilot programs have to be put in place, evaluated, conversations based on pedagogy undertaken, and suggestions (from the grassroots) made.

The trouble is that this takes time. And we get frustrated. By the time we get to 2.0 (via revisions 2.1, 2.2, etc.), things will have moved on to 3.0. But is that really so bad? Remember the (almost) bell-shaped curve of technology adoption (thanks Wes!):

Most of us trying to push things forward are on the left-hand side of the 2.5% category. Look at where the rest are: we’re talking years here, people… But don’t lose heart. We need to keep putting the message out that pedagogy can be redefined by 21st century learning tools. I’m certainly not giving up, and I’ve set up edte.ch to prove it. ;)

Further related reading: Stephen Downes – Half an Hour – Stager, Logo and Web 2.0