As we all talk about 21st-century learning at my school and elsewhere, I'm finding that the MacArthur Foundation's Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog is a great resource for reports and research. A PDF of a recent discussion document, entitled "Education futures, teachers, and technology" is succinct and the questions it asks are provocative.
"...a vision for 21st-century learning is no longer grounded in a single institution or an extended school day. It must honor the networked lives of youth and work across institutions and capacities, rather than pitting them against each other. Building these interconnected learning environments, and creating networked institutions that establish new ecosystems for learning, is critical."
- Education Futures, Teachers, and Technology
Beyond jargon, beyond visionary-grant-speak, we need to think about what it means for teachers and schools when we move from a 19th- or 20th- century model of information scarcity towards a new reality of information abundance. We can use new technology to reinforce old patterns, or we can embrace this disruption as an inflection point. I'm curious to see how we will change.
