Vision
Vision. We use that word a lot in education. There are vision statements, visionary insights, 21st Century teaching and learning visions. When thinking holistically about my personal vision for the use of technology in K-12 education, I wanted to think not only in my current context of living and teaching in the United States but across the planet. And ever the geographer, the theme of landscapes really helps to set in context an analogy of my vision.
During the eighteen months I’ve spent completing this Masters Degree, I’ve climbed to the top of the mountain and looked at the new educational topographic panorama spanning below. Many have traversed this landscape before me – but personally, this is virgin territory! Like looking out from any high elevation, some features stand out more than others and fill your mind with inspiration, questions, wonderings and reflections. As I survey my new instructional space as an educator of twenty years in various other education terrains, the landscape fills me with excitement mixed with fear; with more questions than I have answers to. I feel my energy levels rise when thinking to the potential for technology in teaching and learning in my next twenty years in education, and what my reflections might be during that journey.
Edyburn (2006) said, “Education places a premium on knowledge that is contained in one’s head” (p.22). This new technology landscape is perhaps the transition zone for moving this thinking one step further – as Papert (1985) has already articulated, “Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows”. (p. 102). Technology has provided our world, our students, with endless information and knowledge – the curating and understanding of that learning through solid and sustainable pedagogical pathways should now be foremost in the thinking of any teacher. Like every profession on the planet, education sees trends and cycles of thinking. In the last two years, the elevation of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and STEAM (the addition of the Arts into the mix of thinking) has honed a target into K-12 education – introducing new facilities to schools like Maker Spaces, flexible scholarship, design thinking and real-life learning – personalized learning for every learner. Exciting conversations – but our human capital reality is that there is a wide disparity in the personalities facing these changes. Richardson (2012) reflected, “The reality is that, despite having talked about personalized learning for more than a decade, most schools and teachers have been slow to discover it’s potential through the use of web, interactive games and mobile devices” (p. 23). Our educational landscape is rapidly cultivating the infrastructure of technology in our schools – but the cultivators – are teachers who are learning these new way as they go, mixing tried and tested classroom learning practices with new and wrestling with our “Society of More”, where the rules of “the test” still apply. There is no roadmap or satellite navigation system to guide this brave new world. All we have is the human capacity to harness our expertise, experience and experimentation - to make mistakes and to learn from them.
My vision in practice in K-12 education is to take this landscape for the educators that I will have the fortune of working with in the future, and together, map this terrain for the generations to come. To be one of the people that Steve Jobs described as “crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do”. To lead faculty when they are unsure, feeling fatigued, overwhelmed, change-weary and challenged and celebrate and learn from the successes and new discoveries along the way.
When the astronauts on board Apollo 11 embarked on their mission to the moon, they knew the rules, the laws that governed their potential success and their objective – but they did not know whether that was enough. To go where no man had gone before! To acquire those “new administrative ways to use what one already knows.” All while the world watched. K-12 education today is an Apollo 11. We are on a mission with a clear objective in sight. Our focus must be on our students as it would be easy for them to go off course in this vast universe of knowledge at their fingertips. We as educators of the future must embrace technology in all its myriads of potential and give our students the capability to shoot for the moon and achieve that potential.
References
Partnership for 21st Century Schools (August 2013) Results That Matter: 21st Century
Skills and High School Reform. Retrieved from: http://www.p21.org/news-events/press-releases/202-high-schools-must-integrate-framework-for-21st-century-learning-to-produce-effective-citizens-in-a-global-economy
Minsky, M. L. (1986). The society of mind. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Richardson, W. (2012). Preparing Students to Learn without Us.
Educational Leadership, ASCD, 22-26.
During the eighteen months I’ve spent completing this Masters Degree, I’ve climbed to the top of the mountain and looked at the new educational topographic panorama spanning below. Many have traversed this landscape before me – but personally, this is virgin territory! Like looking out from any high elevation, some features stand out more than others and fill your mind with inspiration, questions, wonderings and reflections. As I survey my new instructional space as an educator of twenty years in various other education terrains, the landscape fills me with excitement mixed with fear; with more questions than I have answers to. I feel my energy levels rise when thinking to the potential for technology in teaching and learning in my next twenty years in education, and what my reflections might be during that journey.
Edyburn (2006) said, “Education places a premium on knowledge that is contained in one’s head” (p.22). This new technology landscape is perhaps the transition zone for moving this thinking one step further – as Papert (1985) has already articulated, “Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows”. (p. 102). Technology has provided our world, our students, with endless information and knowledge – the curating and understanding of that learning through solid and sustainable pedagogical pathways should now be foremost in the thinking of any teacher. Like every profession on the planet, education sees trends and cycles of thinking. In the last two years, the elevation of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and STEAM (the addition of the Arts into the mix of thinking) has honed a target into K-12 education – introducing new facilities to schools like Maker Spaces, flexible scholarship, design thinking and real-life learning – personalized learning for every learner. Exciting conversations – but our human capital reality is that there is a wide disparity in the personalities facing these changes. Richardson (2012) reflected, “The reality is that, despite having talked about personalized learning for more than a decade, most schools and teachers have been slow to discover it’s potential through the use of web, interactive games and mobile devices” (p. 23). Our educational landscape is rapidly cultivating the infrastructure of technology in our schools – but the cultivators – are teachers who are learning these new way as they go, mixing tried and tested classroom learning practices with new and wrestling with our “Society of More”, where the rules of “the test” still apply. There is no roadmap or satellite navigation system to guide this brave new world. All we have is the human capacity to harness our expertise, experience and experimentation - to make mistakes and to learn from them.
My vision in practice in K-12 education is to take this landscape for the educators that I will have the fortune of working with in the future, and together, map this terrain for the generations to come. To be one of the people that Steve Jobs described as “crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do”. To lead faculty when they are unsure, feeling fatigued, overwhelmed, change-weary and challenged and celebrate and learn from the successes and new discoveries along the way.
When the astronauts on board Apollo 11 embarked on their mission to the moon, they knew the rules, the laws that governed their potential success and their objective – but they did not know whether that was enough. To go where no man had gone before! To acquire those “new administrative ways to use what one already knows.” All while the world watched. K-12 education today is an Apollo 11. We are on a mission with a clear objective in sight. Our focus must be on our students as it would be easy for them to go off course in this vast universe of knowledge at their fingertips. We as educators of the future must embrace technology in all its myriads of potential and give our students the capability to shoot for the moon and achieve that potential.
References
Partnership for 21st Century Schools (August 2013) Results That Matter: 21st Century
Skills and High School Reform. Retrieved from: http://www.p21.org/news-events/press-releases/202-high-schools-must-integrate-framework-for-21st-century-learning-to-produce-effective-citizens-in-a-global-economy
Minsky, M. L. (1986). The society of mind. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Richardson, W. (2012). Preparing Students to Learn without Us.
Educational Leadership, ASCD, 22-26.