Content is important. Creativity is important too. I think that there's should be some ideal mix of the two that will look different in different classrooms. I also think that educational literature that is quick to dismiss tradition and content-based learning, however broken, is ultimately unhelpful and only serves to widen the gap between sides. Likewise myopic is the claim that using technology to create more opportunities to play can only be accomplished at the expense of content. Ultimately, it's not the content or the creative technology that matters. The single most important factor in quality education is the teacher, and I fear that too much of the pedagogical literature being shared right now fails to focus on this fact (cf. ASCD "21st Century Skills" for a good assessment of this).
Glenn Hervieux on 17 Nov 13Award-winning educational futurist David Thornburg discusses classroom design and four learning models he has written about extensively in his book, "From the Campfire to the Holodeck: Creating Engaging and Powerful 21st Century Learning Environments" Is your classroom designed primarily for the traditional lecture? For using technology to do the same old things better than differently? Give out too much information vs. using more open-ended approaches? Transform the way information is learned and used? This article helped me to reflect on the way I encourage the use of technology and how to make its use an experience more reflective of what is presented in the CCSS and 21st century learning. What is your response to the article? Agree, disagree? What model(s) do you see yourself using? What movement would you like to make in your approach?
