Traditional

I was just reading two things: one, a blog discussing the fact that, during the tsunami a couple of years ago, there were no "official" news reporters on the scene. All of the video and still photos actually came from ordinary citizens, and tourists - news corporation could not operate in "traditional" fashion and had to rely on images not produced by their own reporters in order to get their stories out. The other was an article about an organization called iCommons that "aims to establish a global commons – a worldwide system that allows people to use the internet to collaborate and access knowledge without the restraints of traditional copyright law." For some reason, the phrase "traditional copyright law" got me thinking about the one word: "traditional". With the technology tools that we have to produce, remix and reinvent any type of content whether audio, visual or text based our "traditional copyright" laws no longer serve us well and we're struggling with traditional vs creative.

In education, we certainly do cling to our traditional ways of doing things - traditional routines, traditional pedagogy, traditional scheduling. If we did something one way before and it worked, then it certainly will work again. More and more I hear conversations among teachers about students ("I've had a tough class this year") and how students have changed yet we haven't acknowledged all of the factors driving these changes. We "think" it might be all the testing...we "think" it might be that the kids go home to dysfunctional families...we "think" kids don't "listen" anymore. I went to a conference about 6 years ago where the presenter pointed out that, in the first five years of their lives, children live in an interactive world but when they get to school, that interaction stops and students are placed in desks, told to do their own work and don't talk to each other while the teacher is instructing. Students also live in a world of creativity, innovation, and collaboration they we haven't yet been able to wrap our heads around in education. I'm not saying I have any solutions, these are just a few reflections and since I've made it my mission to write once a day on this blog - there it is! My own 2 cents... just because! :)

Sorry...it's going to be 3 cents...here's an article about homeless people and their access to technology.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,71153-0.html