Group items tagged

Our students need to be given permission to be creative, to experiment and play with ideas.

linked to permission is acceptance of failure

A third condition for creativity is time and it is this that is perhaps most difficult for schools to provide

You hear two opinions from experts on the topic of what happens when kids are perpetually exposed to technology. One: Constant multitasking makes teens work harder, reduces their focus, and screws up their sleep. Two: Using technology as a youth helps students adapt to a changing world in a way that will benefit them when they eventually have to live and work in it. Either of these might be true. More likely, they both are. But it is certainly the case that these kids are different—fundamentally and permanently different—from previous generations in ways that are sometimes surreal, as if you'd walked into a room where everyone is eating with his feet.

It's as if Beatlemania junkies in 1966 had had the ability to demand "Rain" be given as much radio time as "Paperback Writer," and John Lennon thought to tell everyone what a good idea that was. The fan–celebrity relationship has been so radically transformed that even sending reams of obsessive fan mail seems impersonal.

The teens' brains move just as quickly as teenage brains have always moved, constructing real human personalities, managing them, reaching out to meet others who might feel the same way or want the same things. Only, and here's the part that starts to seem very strange—they do all this virtually. Sitting next to friends, staring at screens, waiting for the return on investment. Everyone so together that they're actually all apart.

Connected devices should inject new opportunities, knowledge, data, influencers and thinking into our debates and add value not distraction.

The question of student distractibility is worth further exploration.

Technology does not need to be a part of every aspect of our lives. We need to learn when it is the best tool, when it plays a part on the sidelines and when it is best left out of the equation.

From a content and skills standpoint, why wouldn’t we expect teachers to connect their students to the smartest, most experienced experts they can find online?

But it is not  either/or approach.  It’s NOT either the traditional approach or the modern approach. There is room for both approaches, particularly there will still be a need for the design and management of essential (e.g. compliance, and regulatory) training.

If nothing else, we should be thinking and talking about this, about how the new realities of the world require different thinking and doing and defining, especially in the context of the roles the adults play in the classroom.