Not surprisingly since it is the end of the school year, many of the blogs I read are re-examining the idea of change in education and how web 2.0 tools fit into that.
Thinking Stick “Creating a Paradigm Shift”
Ideas and Thoughts from an Ed Tech “Paying at the Pump”
Remote Access “Looking Differently”
Chalkdust “To My Children”
Educational Discourse “And We’re Preparing them For?”
Thinking Aloud “Choice or Obligation?”
And of course at Weblogg-ed “Summer Reading”
A lot of common threads run through these posts.
- –That using technology in the classroom isn’t really “optional” anymore if we want to prepare our students for the world they are entering. It is just a natural part of how the world functions.
- –That we as educators and librarians need to understand that knowledge is flexible, ever-changing and not one “set” thing anymore and demonstrate that understanding in how we teach and work with content.
- –That we need to be teaching students to think critically and evaluate the massive amounts of information out there.
- –That educators, in the light of all this, should be moving towards a model that is more inquiry-based, more collaborative, more flexible, more student-driven, and with more global connections outside of the campus.
To paraphrase Patrick Higgins, what is the thinking we will need to make these paradigm shifts?
How this affects what I do is what I’ll be thinking, reading, and writing about this summer. And I’d love to hear your thoughts about how these shifts affect educators in general and school libraries as well.
I have so enjoyed my time on this blog, since “tracking back” your link to mine. Thank you for making that initial link.
Your thoughts on where we are and where we are (need to be) going articulate so well, what goes through my own mind.
We live in exciting and daunting times. We are responsible for preparing students for a future made up entirely of change and more change. Yet we represent and work among a profession that has not changed much in a long time. (In fairness, maybe no one has pushed education hard enough before.)
But now we have no choice. Yet at every turn, we see resistance. And at the next corner we see hope and inspiration (like coming to this blog).
Will the collective minds of those that see the need for change be enough?
Will we speak loudly or clearly or intelligently enough to be heard and to inspire change?
That remains to be seen. Maybe it’s a snowball’s chance in hell, but right now, we are rolling together and gathering a pretty BIG snowball…and that gives me hope.