Looking over the horizon

Photo by Johnny Blood

As well as thinking about cool activities we can do in our lessons it's good to look at the big picture, to think about how all this technology we are using is going to change educational fundamentals. Luckily, this week I happened to come across two examples of people who have done just that. I can't think of another era when such connections would have been possible, meaning that with the introduction of web 2.0 we have broken the constraints of geography in the same way the written word broke the bonds of time. No longer is it necessary to share a classroom, campus or era with those creating new, exciting ideas.



The first such example is this exemplary video by Michael Wesch, assistant professor of Cultural Anthroplology at the University of Kansas, on the way in which the foundations of knowledge are being reorganised by the internet. As well as being a tour de force of breathtaking ideas it is also visually stunning. By the way the music is by Deus and can be downloaded free from here.

The other is Steve Hargadon's interview with John Seely Brown on web 2.o and the culture of learning;

"I think that the amazing moment we have right now in time is to kind-of go back and rethink what Dewey really was about. I think we have to reinvent Dewey for the 21st century--finding a way to bring productive inquiry, bring the social basis of learning, bring the cognitive basis of learning all together. And I think now we can actually start to do that in a much more authentic way for kids at almost any age in a way that there's truly authentic things that these kids are doing that are being picked up by other kids and shared and built on and so on and so forth."

To hear the interview click here.

I'd like to thank The Thinking Stick, Cool Cat Teacher and Steve Hargadon for sharing these great ideas with us.