Technology in Education

Mike Wesch and Scott McLeod recently posted about anti-teaching.  Stepping away from lecture delivery systems and encouraging more student responsibility in learning.  David Warlick talks about this often.  Creating conversations.

 I think of my own education.  The teachers that I learned from the most were incredibly disciplined, but there was no question that the student was leading the way.  I have a music background.  The best ensemble directors asked us to surprise them.  To create someting new and exciting in a piece of music that had been played countless times before.

In many of our classes the same worksheets are passed out each year.  The lecture on the Civil War is the same lecture that was given in 1980.  The textbooks were written in 1995.  And many of these teachers wonder why their students don’t get excited about the subject they teach.  Many of our schools are not set up for innovation.  Many schools frown upon it.  Many students rebel and think “anti-teaching” is “not-teaching”.

How can we effect change on a level outside of our classroom?  There is study after study about the inability for educational reform to penetrate at the classroom level (the only level that counts).  Will it take a “revolution” by the students?  What if they rebel and just start blogging with their phones, uploading video, creating content during school?  Will students make us change?