This morning Will Richardson posted an outline of his presentation at the upcoming Educon 2.2. I know there are a handful of folks that will be there for this great discussion. I want to plug this discussion into our Wisconsin educational technology community.
Will’s upcoming discussion and recent thinking revolves around three quotes from Allan Collins and Richard Halverson’s recent book Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology.
“If educators cannot successfully integrate new technologies into what it means to be a school, then the long identification of schooling with education, developed over the past 150 years, will dissolve into a world where the students with the means and the ability will pursue their learning outside of public school.”
“Schools were prevalent in the era of apprenticeship, and they will be prevalent in whatever new system of education comes into being. But the seeds of a new system are beginning to emerge, and they are already beginning to erode the identification of learning and schooling. As these new technologically driven seeds germinate, education will occur in many different, more adaptive venues, and schools will have a narrower role in learning.”
“Our generation faces a…radically new, design challenge. We are dealing with a mature, stable system of education designed to adapt to gradual change, but ill-suited to embrace radical change. The pace of technological change has outstripped the ability or school systems to adapt essential practices. Schools have fiddled with learning technologies on the margins of the system, in boutique innovations that leave core practices untouched. The emergence of new forms of teaching and learning outside of school threaten the identification of learning with formal schooling forged in the 19th Century.”
While I’m admittedly biased* a bit towards these types of ideas, I think it gets darn close to spot on with the issues that will cause erosion to K12 public education over the next 10 years. There are many examples over the past decade of institutions being disrupted by the Internet.
Craigslist used the Internet to disrupt the newspaper industry.
Apple used the Internet to disrupt the music industry.
Amazon used the Internet disrupt the book industry.
Google is currently using the Internet to disrupt the telecommunications industry.
Who sees the role Craiglist, Apple, Amazon, and Google have played in disrupting institutions as positive? Negative? How? Why?
Who will use the Internet to disrupt K12 education? How? When?
Who is in the position to disrupt the disruptors? How?
Here’s my challenge to the educational technology community here in Wisconsin.
1. If you have questions either in support of or pushing back against these ideas, leave them in the comments on Will’s original post. It helps the entire community.
2. Use these quotes locally to stir a bit of conversation. Pass them along to administrators, leadership committees, technology councils, colleagues, etc.
3. Share what you have learned and/or the trouble you have caused with others.
*I work with Powerful Learning Practice, LLC, co-founded by Will Richardson.
*I was involved with the inception and continually promote Educon.
*Co-author of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology Richard Halverson is an Assistant Professor at UW-Madison. Go Bagders!
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