Education in a Flat World

Digital World Right at our Fingertips

Keith SchroederLibrary Media SpecialistHoward Suamico School DistrictDiscovery DEN STAR EducatorNEWIL President

Digital

Virtual

Global

The World Has Changed!

The World Has Changed

• The world is virtual, digital, and flat• Access to information that we now possess is greater

than it has ever been. • Collaboration with people around the world is no longer

the exception, but the norm.

Our Students Are Different

• They were born after

• The Reagan era• The Persian Gulf

War• The walkman

• Most of them were born after

• The breakup of the Soviet Union

• Tiananmen Square• Compact Discs had

been around for a decade.

They have never• Played Pac Man or

Pong• Listened to an 8-track• Purchased a vinyl

album• Seen a TV with less

than 100 channels• Heard “Where’s the

Beef?”, “I’d walk a mile for a camel”, or “de plane, de plane.”

They Are Smart, Plugged-in, Digital & Connectedand very few have any formative recollection of the 20th century

Our Students Are Different

Learners Learners

Curriculum, Content &Teachers

Gravity

Gravity

From the perspective of their information landscape, our

students are more literate than their teachers!

Traditional classrooms were hilly, with the teacher up above, and the learners down below. We drove curriculum with gravity.But consider that…

Our Classrooms/Delivery Have Not Changed

Our Schools Haven’t Changed

• We’re still teaching with a mostly 19th century approach to leadership and learning.

• Information is sacred and must be acquired through careful study, reading, and discipline.

The Digital Divide No Longer Refers Only to Access

• The students have access to more information and resources than adults.

• They know more about the world than we do in some instances.

• New definition refers to the gap between educators and their skills and abilities to use digital information and technology.

• The imbalance between students and educators in their knowledge of and ability to effectively use digital information and technology.

Video

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8

• http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=e0b93b5f334ffb4e4064

What Do We Know about the Workplace of the Future?

"How Much Information." School of Inormation Management & Systems. 2000. Regents of the University of California. 13 March, 2001. <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/summary.html>.

This is the information-age workplace of the future! But…

What do We Know about the Workplace of the Future?

"How Much Information." School of Inormation Management & Systems. 2000. Regents of the University of California. 13 March, 2001. <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/summary.html>.

If we consider that we carry our phones in our pockets now… http://handouts.davidw

arlick.com/

What do We Know about the Workplace of the Future?

"How Much Information." School of Inormation Management & Systems. 2000. Regents of the University of California. 13 March, 2001. <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/summary.html>.

…that less than 0.01% of the information we generate today is ever printed on paper,

http://handouts.davidwarlick.com

/

What do We Know about the Workplace of the Future?

"How Much Information." School of Inormation Management & Systems. 2000. Regents of the University of California. 13 March, 2001. <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/summary.html>.

…That more and more of our professional collaborations are happening virtually…

http://handouts.davidwarlick.com

/

What do We Know about the Workplace of the Future?

"How Much Information." School of Inormation Management & Systems. 2000. Regents of the University of California. 13 March, 2001. <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/summary.html>.

…and that our information technologies are becoming increasingly personal and pocketed…

http://handouts.davidwarlick.com

/

What do We Know about the Workplace of the Future?

There won’t be much left for the desk -- won’t be much reason to have a desk…

So what do we have left?

Almost nothing!

What do We Know about the Workplace of the Future?

…And this is exactly what we know about the future we’re preparing our children for…

Almost

Nothing!

Key Points – for Educators

• For the first time in history, our job as educators is to prepare students for a future that we cannot clearly describe

• The forces that drive the world are flattening• The flat world has not occurred because of

competition – but because of cooperation• The measure of how global the world has

become is how cooperative it has become• Right brain vs. left brain concept – Daniel Pink• STEM needs to be broadened to STEAM!• Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and

Math

The BIG Question

• How do classrooms, that have traditionally assumed their dominance in producing the information age workers, adapt to an increasingly connected planet, where people can export their talent, regardless of the geography? ..and what does a flat classroom look like, where learning comes less from the gravity of hierarchy and more from the construction and maintenance of a well oiled learning engine?

Trend #1: A New Publishing Revolution

• The Internet is becoming a platform for unparalleled creativity

• We are creating the new content of the Web.

• Web is no longer one way• Don’t need lots of money to do things• The new Web, or Web 2.0, is a two-way

medium• Based on contribution, creation and

collaboration• Requires only access to the web and a

browser• Web is even greater place for social or

collaborative opportunities

Trend #2: A Tidal Wave of Information

• The publishing revolution will have an impact on the sheer volume of content available to us that is hard to even comprehend

• The deluge has started with the new Web 2.0 tools• We must figure out what information to give our

time and attention to when we are engulfed by it• It is in the act of our becoming a creator that our

relationship with content changes, and we become more engaged and more capable at the same time

• In a world of overwhelming content, we must swim with the current or tide (unless you’re an awesome swimmer or you need to get into a boat!)

Trend #3: Everything Is Becoming Participatory

• Amazon.com is for me the great example of how participation has become integral to an industry, and in a delicious irony, the book industry itself.

• The reviews, tracking, book suggestions • Leads me to other books I might otherwise not

have heard of. • Imagine an electronic book that allows you to

comment on a sentence, paragraph, or section of the book, and see the comments from other readers... to then actually be in an electronic dialog with those other readers

• It’s here – Kindle 2 Apple iPad

Trend #4: The New Pro-sumers.

• “Pro-sumer" = Producter + Consumer• More and more companies are engaging their

customers in the creation of the product they sell them.

• From avid off-road bikers who created the original mountain bikes that now dominate the market, to substantial companies eliciting R&D work from a broader public. (And don't get me started on American Idol, which is a fairly brilliant way to create a superstar.)

• The nature not just of how knowledge is acquired, but how it is produced, is changing.

Trend #5: The Age of the Collaborator

• We are most definitely in a new age, and it matters.

• If many of us had been born 150 years ago, we might have been taken out into the wilderness and left to die

• The era of trusted authority (Time magazine, for instance, when I was young) is giving way to an era of transparent and collaborative scholarship (Wikipedia)

• The expert is giving way to the collaborator, since 1 + 1 truly equals 3 in this realm.

Trend #6: An Explosion of Innovation

• Innovation results from the application of knowledge from one field to another

• Now, imagine all of us as creators, bringing our own particular experiences and insight to increasingly diverse and specific areas of knowledge

• The combination of 1. An increased ability to work on specialized topics by

gathering teams from around the globe2. The diversity of those collaborators, should bring

with it an incredible amount of innovation.

Trend #7: The World Gets Even Flatter and

Faster.

• Yes, and even if that "flat" world is "spiky" or "wrinkled," it's still getting pretty darn flat

• That anyone, anywhere in the world, can study using over the material from over 1800 open courses at MIT is astounding, and it's only the start

• We all benefit from this flatter and faster world• This is key to our ability and impetus for

global literacy• Knowledge + Creativity = Competitive Edge

Trend #8: Social Learning Moves Center Stage.

• The distinction between the "lecture" hall and the "hallway" is diminishing--since it's in the hallway discussions after the lecture where learning actually takes place.

• One of the strongest determinants of success in higher education is the ability to form or participate in study groups

• Time to move from thinking of knowledge as a "substance" that we transfer from teacher to student, to a social view of learning.

• Not "I think, therefore I am," but "We participate, therefore we are”

• From "access to information" to "access to people"

• From "learning about" to "learning to be."

Trend #9: The Long Tail

• Amazon.com sells more items that aren't carried in retail stores than are - that an era of specialized production is made possible by the Internet

• Technologies of the Web make "differentiated instruction" a reality that both parents and students will demand.

• I can go online and watch heart-surgery take place live. I can find a tutor in almost any subject who can work with me via video-conference and shared desktop.

• If anyone has a passion - they can learn about it and actually produce work in the field and become a contributing part of that community.

Trend #10: Social Networking Really (Opens Up the Party.

• Web 2.0 was amazing when blogs and wikis led the way

• But the party really began when sites that combined several Web 2.0 tools together created the phenomenon of "social networking"

• If MySpace were a country, it would be the third most populous in the world

• WhatNing is doing by allowing users to create their own social networks is amazing

• The potential for education is astounding• Google Wave has the potential to revolutionize

the classroom

Shifts in Thinking

• From consuming to producing• From authority to transparency• From the expert to the facilitator• From the lecture to the hallway• From "access to information" to "access to people“• From "learning about" to "learning to be“• From passive to passionate learning• From presentation to participation• From publication to conversation• From formal schooling to lifelong learning• From supply-push to demand-pull

Web 2.0 is the future of education

Help Build the New Playbook.

• You may think that you don't have anything to teach the generation of students who seem so tech-savvy, but they really, really need you

• For centuries we have had to teach students how to seek out information – now we have to teach them how to sort from an overabundance of information

• We've spent the last ten years teaching students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content – now we have to teach them to create appropriate content.

• They may be "digital natives," but their knowledge is surface level

• They desperately need training in real thinking skills. • More than any other generation, they live lives that are

largely separated from the adults around them

Digital

Virtual

Global

The World Has Changed!