I connected a few dots, and now have some questions...
Librarians become Media Coordinators. Schools hire Technology teachers. We're wiring everyone up to the internet. Podcasts, Youtube, 'blogs, email, wikis—wonderful programs designed to help our students think critically and creatively to collaborate and communicate to real audiences for authentic purposes. Sounds great. Where was this when I was in school, in my Seniors only Computers elective working with dos prompts? (Google it, young 'uns.) But rather than looking back to see how far we've come since the, dare I confess, 80s, stop for a moment and examine the big picture: what are the various trends in Education, and where are they leading us?
Each of us in engaged in future learning. By this I mean the world on on-line classes. The cost ofmaintaining fleets of yellow buses, criss-crossing the rural counties and the crowded cities, and mid sized towns in between. The standards are in the process of being Standardized further with the Common Core. While I applaud their simplicity and their flexibility,they cry out for self-directed, differentiated, inquiry based cross curricular learning. Immersion in a time and place, to examine the prevalent and relevant ideas and concepts “the educated” know. What happens when we add the economic crisis to the mix? What happens when local and state revenues are down as costs for safety net services increases? What happens when good teaching is reduced to a set of acronyms providing step by step instructions? Enthusiastic about the possibilities of technology use in the classroom that replicates real world communication, I can't help but be troubled isn't the right word about the future of public education.
Privatization, vouchers, and the explosion of charter schools and virtual charter schools leads me to ask what a “classroom” will look like ten years hence, or twenty, when I retire to the fairways and greens of Western North Carolina or Southern California. Colleges offer more and more distance learning oppportunities, high school students work on independent study programs designed to move them ahead, or allow them to catch up, and the rise of homeschooling and virtual schools like K12.com leave me to wonder how many of us will teach in on-line programs, where we learn about our students throught threaded discussions and voice within their writings? How will packaged learning programs affect K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12? (the natural groupings, imo....) At what point will we teach skills in K-6, then shift students to virtual classroom for 7-12, when their hormones explode and they become snarky teenagers? How will the new economic and literacy demands demand that we radically modify the delivery of education in the future? I remember whern the white board was the newest, latest technology. Colored markers! Wipes off easily! Better than an Overhead projector!
What will my students remark about as their learning environments and their tools for knowledge excavation?
Hi! I laughed out loud at your "snarky teenagers" comment. What exactly is snarky??? :) As to the rest . . . enjoy the here and now with an eye to the future. Yes, enjoy!
ReplyDeleteThe future of education is at interesting cross-roads right now. I do think that we will see more and more online education happening at younger and younger ages. I think that this option is a very good one for many students. I helped a student from our district get set-up with an online school because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The other teachers just thought he was staying up to late at night and did not want to do his work. I knew that he needed another option for when and how to learn. He is now in his second year of the program and is finding success. Working at home on a computer is not for all students though so I think that public schools will stay in place. Many students have very bad home lives and schools are their escape to a sane place where people care. In my district we are now at 70% free and reduced meals. Would these students get fed if they were at home? I also think that children need to learn social skills. Many parents rely on schools to raise their children. You can add to that that many of our students’ parents are unprepared to help their child learn. Many of my students’ parents have little to no formal education. These parents do not even have the skills to sign their child up for an online school, let alone support it.
ReplyDeleteAs I have been writing this, I can see now that online learning will be used more by the wealthy and that will just take more money away from public education unless our public schools develop online options for those wanting to use it. Check out this Website for some staggering statistics on the changes that our forecast to take place over the next few years. http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/10/28/10.5-million-prek-12-students-will-attend-classes-online-by-2014.aspx
I am actually thinking that it might be fun to teach an online class, but all the research I have done shows that I would make less money doing that. Have you looked into it? I was thinking about how nice it would be to retire from the traditional classroom and travel while teaching an online class or two.