ireneQ | Kaleidoscope

Culture? How do you explain culture? Hoping for some help, I went to Google on Monday night and began searching for videos on culture. The old adage "a picture speaks a thousand words" is truer than ever in our digital age... in fact, it might help the students to remember better. I felt a short video might make a great teaching aid -- if I could find something appropriate. Then I stumbled upon this video of Mike Wesch's talk (lecture?). I've been thinking about ICT and education ever since. Wesch said some very pertinent things: Students are bored in the classroom They feel whatever they learn in the classroom is irrelevant to their lives They just want to do whatever they need to get the grades they need, and get out of there Why? Because the classroom sends the message that information is scarce and hard to find That the teacher is the one with the information That you must listen and follow and only trust the information from the authoritative source (the teacher) Whereas... "While we are quizzing these students on their multiple-choice exams, the reality is that they could just pull out their phones and find any answer that's on that exam." This reminds me of what a friend of mine said: if you are doing a degree in IT, by the time you graduate, whatever you have studied is already obsolete. The thought is echoed in a message from one of Wesch's students in this other video, saying, "When I graduate I will probably have a job that doesn't exist today." I think the concept of education will change significantly in my lifetime. I don't know how but I do know that we as educators -- and the education system itself -- will have to evolve or risk becoming obsolete too. If, with the Internet at his fingertips, a student can instantly learn whatever he needs to learn, why would he need a teacher?… [more]