Friday, July 27, 2007

we are education

reading the "we are the internet" article really made me think about not only the age we are in, but also the progression of that age and how it affects the way we learn. like the article said, people (including experts) were TOTALLY wrong about what the internet could do. i particularly liked ted nelson who envisioned the internet as the sum of all human knowledge. as impressively grand as that idea is, it's also a bit sobering to realize that even he came short in truly grasping what the net could actually do.

with this initial misconception in mind, i wonder how well we are actually understanding the internet now. being in the information age, our lives revolve around the sharing of ideas and information. everything from our commerce to our national defense is directly linked to how effectively we can send information to where it needs to be. it's staggering to see how far we've come. my mother has always been skeptical of business majors because she thinks they're in the business of making money out of thin air. but when you think about it, making money from the internet really is kind of like making money out of nothing.

back on point. we might learn about all these things with technology and how to use them, but what is that doing to us as educators? i think as we begin to think about implementation and usage of technology, we have to keep in mind that it could very easily explode into something as huge as the internet. but i think this is important for us to grapple with as teachers because as future educators and possibly leaders in our field, we could possibly say that "we are education."

but still, it's hard for me to really have that kind of open mindset though just because it's so broad and uncertain. where can technology go in the future? anywhere.

where exactly is anywhere?

1 comment:

Jeff Stanzler said...

Fine questions, Larry. I am especially pleased to see you frame the question that parallels Kelly's observation about how wrong so many were back in 1995--who is to say that we'll be any closer to the mark as we attempt to project forward. Even though this question encourages humility, it doesn't alleviate our responsibility to think it through and to continue to think ahead and to try to create learning spaces that have a bigger picture in mind. Going back to John Dewey, he recognized (wisely, I think) that we had to try to prepare kids for an uncertain future, which led him to be a bit more interested in cultivating students' sense of agency as people and as citizens.
Great questions to be thinking about, Larry...