Dec 12 2009
What’s there “To Get” anyway??
I have been bouncing around the new Google Chrome beta for the Mac for the last couple of hours. My first impressions are very positive. It seems faster and more robust. I can’t say much more other than I am bouncing back and forth between 3 browsers now using Firefox, Safari and now Chrome to do my websurfing. I am using Firefox here because of the Scribefire add-on I like to do my blogging with in the window below. I just moved this article over to Firefox to pull quotes….
Will Richardson writes about some of his thought on what it means to “get it”. He notes that he recently made a trip to the George Lucas Educational Foundation annual meeting- he apparently is a board member- and notes that one of the most common topics of conversation in his circles is the idea of people “getting it”. Not to over simplify things here but…. what the heck is he talking about? Will, may I ask that you define “it”?
At my level of work, I spend so much time trying to get people to understand “it” as well. “It” means social learning. “It” means 21st century skills. “It” means basic educational standards. “It” is not as simple as “it” seems.
Will notes that “getting it” can be taken in three levels:
Level 1 seems to be “getting” that there are all these new tools and technologies out there and that we can now publish all sorts of content really easily. And that kids are already using social networks and that these tools are cropping up more and more in classrooms around the world. When I hear the question “How do we help other teachers to “get it?” ….
Level 2 takes it a step further and implies that “getting it” means that there is some real change involved in what’s happening right now, that it’s not just about tools, but about connections and building learning networks for ourselves and for our students…
Level 3 is not so much about what happens in our practice or in our classrooms but what happens to our schools. That at a time when learning can be individualized and where creativity and passion are just as important as reading and math, our expectations for the roles of schools in educating our kids have to be more than just playing on the edges.
Taken as a whole I can see where Will is going on this “it”. The key question is not in finding the right answers, but in asking the right questions. I, like Will, ask the same question (just in a different way). It is not, “What should we be talking about?”. Instead I think it is “What’s there to “get” anyway?
Speaking of “getting it” or not…. check out this post from ASCD scholar facilitator Tom Hoerr in his post “Better Leading Through Technology?” (blocked in China) Where he asks:
But . . . is technology being marketed as a cure-all? Do we seek technological solutions where none is necessary?
Thanks Will for the great post!
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