In his State of the Union address last January, President Barack Obama put education at the top of the agenda. These themes for education reform and change have rippled through the nation with his recent campaigns for the Race to the Top.1 There’s a great deal of talk about technology integration, 21st century skills, web 2.0 and more, throughout the education community. It’s evident that we are resting on the dawn of a great change in education, the classroom, teaching and learning. Yet while we work to train more teachers, change policies, increase funding and expand overall efforts to turnaround education, I thinks it’s important for us to ask: What are the ingredients of learning today?
Learning to Change, Changing to Learn
The video “Learning to Change, Changing to Learn” on YouTube by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a professional association for technology leaders in K-12 education, really got me thinking about each of the ingredients for learning.2 Here are a few themes from this video that I feel are important when we develop the recipe for learning:
- Turn classrooms into communities.
Today’s students are connected through intricate webs and networks – that are truly small communities – with social media and other digital tools. Students today know how to tap into their Personal Learning Network (PLN) to connect with others and to access information. Integrating these principals into learning can improve how students gather and interact with information while collaborating with others. - Open the classroom door to the world and connect students to real life experiences.
Today we can do more than just talk out of a book about places around the world. With the web, students can see pictures, watch videos, read work in native languages, experience music, and explore news and events as they happen – all to better understand cultures, history, current events and more. Lessons become real and meaningful when students can actually see the people and places they are about. For example, tools like Google Earth bring topography and places alive in a way that static maps cannot. - Expand learning beyond the classroom.
With today’s cloud computing tools, learning is no longer restricted to the classroom. Students can take their work anywhere. With this, learning can continue to occur long after the bell rings. To truly take advantage of this, we need to change our view of the classroom and the school day. Online courses and schools were in the forefront of this shift in thinking. Today, many schools encourage the utilization of online courses to supplement school classes. The classroom no longer has to be a room with desks and four walls; it no longer has to occur between 7:45 AM and 3:30 PM, Monday through Friday. It can be anywhere and anytime students can gain the fullest experience of learning. - Interact with others across the globe.
It’s a small world that’s only getting smaller with technology and the Internet. The likelihood that students will one day telecommunicate with coworkers, clients or customers across the country and globe is high. So, it’s important for students to grow up with a global understanding of the world and a global perspective. Students can begin to understand and appreciate other cultures, other views of the world and other histories by having pen-pals or corresponding with students in other states and countries via Skype, Facebook, email and more. For a protected, safe environment they could even use Webspiration Classroom to communicate. - Call upon an ever-changing magnitude of skills.
We all know that students need more than just rote learning skills to complete a task in today’s world. They need the skill of staying on top of skills. Students need to be able to adapt and change, wade through the abundance of information, synthesize information, think critically and creatively in order to prosper.
So, as we compile the ingredients into a recipe for education, we must decide what will help students learn today and in the future. What do you think are the important ingredients of learning?
Mona Westhaver
President and Co-founder, Inspiration Software
- “Obama Makes Education a State of Union Centerpiece – Politics K-12 – Education Week.” Education Week: Blogs. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/01/state_of_the_union_coverage.html>. [↩]
- “YouTube – Learning to Change-Changing to Learn.” YouTube – Broadcast Yourself. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk&tracker=False>. [↩]
