Sentiments On Common Sense

I would like to follow up on my post yesterday. I have been doing a lot of thinking how technology builds a new classroom environment.  I use the word “new” very carefully here, in that we have been using tech in classrooms now for quite a while.  Heck… I used computers in my classroom way back in ’87.  That would be a healthy 22 years ago now.   Nonetheless, tech does move the classroom environment toward a more democratic approach with the direction of learning coming from both the adult and the child (or teacher and student).

Silvia Tolisano at the Langwitches blog wrote a great post on the 29th called “Take the Technology out of the Equation”. This post is worth a read if you have not had a chance to work through her thoughts and the links. It is a well written post that goes to the heart of my beliefs and the point of my “micro”-rant from yesterday.  Her wordle from the post is to the upper left of this post.

In the post she asks a series of questions about learning.

They are:

• How do we teach students how to learn?
• How do we motivate and engage learners?
• How do we create a climate where learning is valued, not test scores or a covered text book?

Yesterday I stated that if we as educators are constantly stuck in the learning skills we will never “…be able to drill down deep in our conversations about higher level thinking, collaboration, problem solving and content creation”.

Let’s think hard here.  It really is common sense. To get past the reasons and excuses and the lack of skills by both the teachers and the students (recognizing both as learners) we as school leaders must focus our organizations on learning and the learning process.  I have said in the past and probably will do again and again, that we are denying our students great learning experiences if we remove the technology component from the learning equation. I believe that technology could be the greatest learning tool ever invented, and it really does flatten the instructional process by involving all members of the learning community in the process.  By gaining the engagment of the learner, we also gain their trust and their passion for learning.

Silvia said it best when when she states:

Maybe we need to be talking about something no one can deny as a priority in our schools: STUDENT LEARNING. Maybe we if we talk on that common ground,  there will be less resistance, more collaboration and communication on how to achieve that.

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Sigh….

Through my Diigo in Education group link I received a notice of a blog entry titled “Top 10 Tech Skills Your Teen Needs Now”.

Wow… that sounds like a great link to put in front of my community to focus them on some of the skills our school will be developing next year.  This will be great. With great glee I clicked the link and the number one thing list is: KEYBOARDING.

My common sense tells me that yes, keyboarding is important. I think back to my 8th grade year and my horrible experience in typing (manual typewriters and dull boredum of aaasssdddfffjjjkkklll;;; over and over again) where I earned some very bad grades!  I think to the hours that I have spent with elementary school kids teaching them “good” typing habits.  Was it time poorly spent. My answer is no, but my point is that KEYBOARDING is not a tech skill. It is a life skill.

After a quick search on the very same site I found this article which defines literacy (I read tech skills here) as:

• Using digital technology, communication tools and/or networks appropriately to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge economy
• Using technology as a tool to research, organize, evaluate and communicate information, and the possession of a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information

One would argue that keyboarding is a part of this list above, but frankly, without beginning the conversation at the most macro level, we will forever be stuck in the logistics of keyboarding instruction and morass that focuses on the skills of operating common applications.  Never will we be able to drill down deep in our conversations about higher level thinking, collaboration, problem solving and content creation.  If we continue to focus on the whys and hows of social networking and computer maintenance, then we will never be able to concentrate on using the machine as a ubiquitous tool.  You teach students only that using a database is about maintaining password security and using web searches to find and secure information then our kids never will understand the use of the deep web of informaiton that lies beneath a Google search, and will forever be doomed to simple information analysis.

No offense to the author, but I believe she has missed the point.  Basic skills are good, but focus these skills on deep, meaningful and pertinent application in content study will create stronger more flexible, capable thinkers.

Image from Flickrstorm CC http://www.flickr.com/photos/21814877@N00/3363073562

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