I believe that in the next generation schools will have to face the changes that are inevitable. There is no doubt that technology will allow us to change our approach to education. I believe the question is how do we make ourselves relevant. The students today are exposed to much more online communication and electronic communication than we have ever expericenced. We have to be able to bring the learning to the students as apposed to bringing students to the learning. We are seeing that change in our schools today with the access they have to computers.
I think that School 2.0 is a great vision, however with budget crisis and limited resources I don't know how practical it is to assume that every school district could afford to renovate their buidings to accomadate the vision. The School 2.0 idea is the first step toward taking learning out of the current school setting and into a wider community. The idea that I love is that of engaging students in learning instead of teaching students. Change doesn't come easy but if you want students to be knowledgeable, capable and responsible learners than you have to empower them to do so. That is what School 2.0 is about.
I am not sure what I would change because it is difficult to know what something will look like when you see it on paper. There is so much involved in the map and to be honest it is difficult to look at on the internet.
2 comments:
You said, "I believe the question is how do we make ourselves relevant." I couldn't agree with you more. If we don't find a way to be more relevant, I think we will lose more students, or certainly lose their interest and investment in learning.
I understand what both of you are saying and I agree. I think we must work to make it relevant and we must work toward teaching students the technology they need to know to be successful adults in the future society. Budget constraints are a challenge and the present testing mindset an even bigger one but we also are in a district that understand the importance of these issue and makes real attempts to meet at least some of the technological needs of our students within the budgets they are given. I think as Dr. Zhao put it, more computers are of no use if we are using them as pencil and paper. We need to be given time to brainstorm and plan authentic technology uses for our students with the materials we already have. We need to analyze why we teachers use technology in a unit and then say "Well that was a lot of work." and never use it again. Just like our students need to show evidence of our learning, we need to show evidence that technology is both relevant and effective to better learning practice. It is the only way to convince administrators, board members, and the community at large that investing in technology is cost effective budgeting.
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