Friday, February 1, 2013

My Own Personal Checkdown

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure to have a dinner conversation with Ian Jukes as part of a district meeting to discuss technology planning for districts.  During this conversation, I was struck by how profound Jukes' comments were and how completely out of sorts his vision was with the actual state of affairs in most districts.  The question I always came back to was "HOW are we going to implement this?"

Three years and a shift to an entirely different type of job (thanks to CESA 6's vision), I am not saying "how, how, how" any more.  I don't view technology as the "essential", the tool and the end product.  The world is changing, our students have changed and my own view of education and technology has changed (hopefully "matured").





In  Literacy is Not Enough: 21st-Century Fluencies for the Digital Age, Lee Crockett, Ian Jukes and Andrew Church hit the heart of the matter immediately:


  • Independent and creative thinking are the most important aspects of learning
  • We need to teach our students to not need us by the time they graduate (progressive withdrawal)
  • Learners must master problem-solving, not content
  • Emotional intelligence (relationships, people skills, street smarts) are equally important as cognitive intelligence (content, book smarts)
  • Education should be immersed in our new digital world.  We need to leverage our students' realities to be successful
  • Student learning and assessment is a portfolio of performance, demonstrations and applications to solve real-life problems
  • Education must strive for relevancy

Sound familiar?  Creative thinking, problem-solving, project-based, real-world application, performance  and production... Sounds strikingly like a general summary of the Common Core Standards.  

As a techno-nut, IT instructor and media specialist, this greatly affects how I view everything I do with classes, teachers and during staff development.  It's not teaching the tool, it's teaching HOW the tool makes us stretch, HOW the tool makes us achieve, HOW the tool helps us think more creatively...HOW...HOW...HOW.

Took three years, but I finally got my answers to all those HOW questions.

If you are interested in this book, please let me know.  Love to share it.


More of Ian Jukes



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