EdTechTrek

(Disclaimer: This post is not meant to be critical of the democratic party nominee per se… only critical of empty rhetoric)

There have been a number of critics (here, here, here) who have critiqued the commonly used term, “21st century skills” to represent a new skillset that students and workers must possess in this global and highly digital society and economy.

But from this article, it is pretty clear that Obama does not have a clue what 21st century skills really entails. In ths Eschoolnews article, he is quoted as saying (my thoughts in red):

“Without a workforce trained in math, science and technology, and the other skills of the 21st century (so now math and science are skills of the 21st century?), our companies will innovate less, our economy will grow less, and our nation will be less competitive. If we want to out-compete the world tomorrow, we must out-educate (test?) the world today,” Obama said. He added: “While technology has transformed just about every aspect of our lives–from the way we travel, to the way we communicate, to the way we look after our health–one of the places where we’ve failed to seize its full potential is in the classroom. (This is quite true. I have no problem with this statement.)

“Imagine a future where our children are more motivated because they aren’t just learning on blackboards, but on new whiteboards with digital touch screens (So, simply replacing chalkboards…(they aren’t all black these days, senator) with digital whiteboards will revolutionize education. Huh.); where every student in a classroom has a laptop at [his or her] desk; where [students] don’t just do book reports but design PowerPoint presentations (Great! Let’s spend all of that money on technology infrastructure, software, and hardware so students can do PowerPoint book report presentations from their laptops. There’s innovation for you!) ; where they don’t just write papers, but they build web sites (with text copied and pasted from the Internet and from textbooks?); where research isn’t done just by taking a book out of the library, but by eMailing experts in the field (Okay…that’s actually a great idea.); and where teachers are less a source of knowledge than a coach for how best to use it and obtain knowledge(Again, a great idea, but not new in the 21st century either.). By fostering innovation (But what’s the innovation in all of this?), we can help make sure every school in America is a school of the future.

“And that’s what we’re going to do when I’m president. We will help schools integrate technology into their curriculum, so we can make sure public school students are fluent in the digital language of the 21st-century economy. We’ll teach our students not only math and science, but teamwork and critical thinking and communication skills (I hate to be a party pooper here, but these are not new in the 21st century.), because that’s how we’ll make sure they’re prepared for today’s workplace.”

So, what are we left with here? A plug for digital whiteboards, laptops, authoring websites, PowerPoint ad nauseum, and a little constructivist philosophy thrown in the mix. Oh yes, math and science is important. This is not the stuff that great speeches are made of. This is not the rhetoric of an informed politician. And the biggest slap is the subheading to the article: “GOP largely silent on 21st-century skills”. I guess they need to throw some of these terms around as well to make us all happy. Well, I certainly am not happy about what I read. I hope you are not, either. We have been struggling with these learning issues for decades now. Throwing technology into the mix is not the silver bullet. We know that. And funny, but there is no mention of any (with the exception of math and science and the hint of technology-based standardized testing) of this on his webpage regarding educational policy.

So, Mr. Obama (you should read through this), what really needs to happen to see teaching and learning innovation in our nation’s schools? Unless you have that figured out, all of the money you allocate to your “plan for change” will just be more of the same. At least we can use a digital white board to project PowerPoint presentations, right?

I am beginning to read Blocks to Robots: Learning With Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom by Mariana Umaschi Bers. I have only read the foreward which is written by David Elkind, a favorite author of mine. I love how he writes. And this passage struck me as so clear and well-written that I would like to share it here. In describing constructionism, a theoretical framework built on the shoulders of Jean Piaget, Seymour Papert, and others…

“When children build their own mechanical/electronic objects, they have created experience from which they learn new concepts of space, time, and causality. Indeed, in this self-created virutal world, space has become portable, time has become retrievable, and causality has become programmable.”

I love how that it worded. Children of all ages so need learning opportunities where causality is programmable - where they learn through direct interactions with their environment, but where they hold the power over this environment and are able to manipulate it in so many ways. The fact that these interactions are both portable and retrievable makes it even more attractive. Opportunities for learning through construction are so vast. My graduate students felt overwhelmed by the endless learning opportunities and potential afforded by new technologies.

But tell me this - is the bigger challenge getting teachers to understand and value constructivist/constructionist principles, or is it getting them to use new technologies? It would seem to me that the former must happen before the latter, or at least, they must happen simultaneously. It is extremely hard to explain the learning power that can be leveraged with new technologies when the theoretical frameworks upon which these learning experience are built are so foreign, so uncomfortable to begin with.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of this book.