What+You+Had+to+Say

August 14, 2007

What are your initial reactions to what you saw in the presentation?


 * I am glad I am not 21 and preparing to go to college.
 * Just when you thought it was safe to go into the classroom
 * Sense of fluidity of world. Markets don’t move slowly but effectively; opportunities change and evolve almost overnight. Although panic, there is great comfort in knowing that if you lose a job there is another job. The world really is flat. The water is shifting to the lowest point. Adapt. Teach the kids the skills they need.
 * Adaptation is the key. Look back in history; a long time the goal was for humans to use machines, humans had to be directly involved, workers parts of the machine. Now the machine is so far ahead, the computer is able to do so much.
 * Process of automation has freed us up to go back to creativity and art.
 * It is a little comforting to me—although most of the changes are painful—the change is productive. We get used to it. We overcome the pain.
 * Industrial revolution. Sitting around and saw the invention of the plow—transformations could be seen happening—not a snow flurry, the blizzard of the century—physically day-to-day don’t see it—
 * Paranoid orientation to the world. My greatest fear is that the technology is outpacing so quickly and able to find good uses for it. Counseling time is now spent dealing with kids using tech inappropriately. Chatting, text messaging instead of using mental stimulation. My observation over 30 years is we are actually moving away from some of the more task, academic things and kids are spending a lot more time on stuff that could actually be kind of meaningless.
 * When learning to use the phone, the people who taught you weren’t ahead of you.
 * When I see it, it makes me angry. A lot of people are using computers to stay in their own world. Lots of schools aren’t using this to teach tolerance, to look outside of your own little community. Using tech for gaming.
 * On the flip side, people are using this to stay connected. People can talk to each other and see what’s going on out there.
 * Global. Isolation. Technology to get in the door. The fringe is driving the ship. Those isolated elements that have the time and the dedication. It’s being used in ways you do not like; it’s the isolated individuals who are using it and we’re all sort of following it.
 * Library perspective. We don’t have to buy. The world is at everybody’s fingertips. A high percentage of those searches are curiosity, healthy. So much to explore that as a positive.
 * The reaffirmation for the need for teachers. It’s our job to make it possible for our kids to know and enjoy using it. Part of our new job.
 * I worry about kids using it in a way that they do not view as irresponsible. Huge responsibility to educate. Consequences.
 * We have to select what we need and teach the kids what to select and what to need.

What do we think it means to prepare students for the 21st century? What skills do students need to survive and thrive in this new era? ala Pink?


 * It’s about the ability to decide what is important information. What do we do with all of this information?
 * Part of what is important, what skills are kids developing? A set of skills being developed, such as game playing.
 * A statistic said those surgeons today that grew-up using joysticks are better able to perform delicate surgery faster.
 * Games have changed the way we think of education.