Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Followup on "Vindication for OLD 21st Century Learners"

I found this video from the blog "Free Technology for Teachers" written by Mr. Byrne. This is my response.

Thanks for including this video. At 54 years of age, it is nice to be told I'm not an archaic artifact of outdated education.

One thing that disturbs me greatly about all the "hype" around 21 century learning and skills: no one seems to answer the question (for me at least) "What do we need to learn in order to learn something else?" We all need to have some kind of knowledge and experience base in order to learn something else. If students do not have this base, then they will spend their time designing endless Zwinkies and playing mindless games with their 21st century technology.

Are present-day schools REALLY that bad? Is there NOTHING they have to offer to "21st Century Learners?" After all, even we old people have graduated to these new technologiesand ways of thinking from the "old schools".

1 comment:

Morag Riddell said...

I liked this. Everything old is new again? I agree that we have to incorporate new technology but what about teaching plain 'old-fashioned' thinking skills. We may be able to use a calculator to balance our cheque books but do we then stop teaching addition and subtraction? Thanks for sharing this video.