I was thinking the other day, always a dangerous idea, about the redefining roles of the “teacher” (or instructor or professor, to me these are all people who do a similar job, just in a different manner sometimes). If the ownership of knowledge is becoming a way of the past, what happens to the really good teachers who have a narrative that typically resonates with the students? Are those narratives disappearing? Chances are, no, those narratives are changing, but not disappearing. Maybe the narrative is what one pays for in the future of education. Maybe that’s where education makes it’s money in the future – by making the teacher the celebrity to be consumed based on how popular/interesting/insightful they are. Make the information free but keep the interpretation and way it’s delivered behind the wall. Maybe.
Digital Life
Testing The Technology?
I saw on the OLDaily an article that railed against technology testing at the K-12 level in the US, sort of a “No Child Left E-Behind”. A ridiculous idea at best. Even if it is a good, well designed test about technology (and that’s like doing a great big test on literature… what kind of literature??) who’s to say that this test will not be outdated and passe by the time the test is written, vetted, collaborated on and approved.
The other thing this idea reinforces is the gap between the haves and have nots… if you are unable to access a computer on a regular basis, your skill level will lag behind those that do. Over time, you can catch up, sure, but is your technical capacity really that important in grade 5? Or grade 8? Is it so important to test something that doesn’t start to come into play until much later in life? Or maybe we all could spend a little more time teaching and modelling critical thinking? Yeah.