Tag: participatory

Times Person of the Year

As most know by now, the Time Person of the year is YOU. You in the Time perspective refers to OUR involvement in the participatory net (Web 2.0).

I do not typically read Time online so I am not familiar with their conventions for offering magazine content online. When I first tried some days ago, the articles were not available, but now it appears that most articles can be read without purchasing the paper version. This is worth a look – not because any of the articles concern educational topics, but because the discussion of Web 2.0 topics is useful to those interested in general Internet use.

The article I found most useful was a short piece by Jeff Howe (I could not find this article online). I tend to be attracted to useful ways of describing or categorizing complete phenomena. In keeping with the theme of YOU as person of the year, Mr. Howe described Web 2.0 as:

  • You make it – user-generated content
  • You name it – folksonomy (tags)
  • You work on it – crowdsourcing
  • You find it – the long tail

This system was then linked to specific examples of general categories – the entertainers, the tookmakers, the gatherers.

Blogged with Flock

Loading

Advancing K-12 Education – Time Magazine Suggestions

I promised yesterday that I would comment on the recent Time magazine articles that have commented on education and the participatory Internet. The cover story of the Dec. 18 Time addresses the question How to Build a Student for the 21st Century?

The summary –

Today’s economy demands not only a high-level competence in the traditional academic disciplines, but also what might be called 21st century skills.

The article presents a view that should be familiar to educators who attend national conferences or follow many education bloggers. Actually, Friedman’s The World is Flat presents what I would regard as a similar and more comprehensive analysis of many of the same issues (Friedman’s work is mentioned). US students will need to acquire an expanded set of skills to compete in a flat world – greater awareness of the world including a commitment to other languages, higher order thinking skills, the capacity to use information more efficiently and more wisely, improved skills in cooperative processes, etc.

The article references a new report – Tough Choices For Tough Times – that provides the summary of a new panel offering advice on a new direction for K-12 education. My copy is on order. I hope the corporate leaders and politicians who feel empowered to set such an agenda also have answers for what should be related funding questions. I assume the Department of Education association with this report will assure an extended conversation of the findings.

The authors do acknowledge what I think is a core question when reform recommendations are advanced? How are educators supposed to meet existing expectations (e.g., NCLB) for core knowledge and take on a new array of expectations? The answer seems to be “focus” – teach core concepts and forget the details. I have encountered this idea – depth vs. breadth – in reviewing analyses of international TIMMS data. If I remember the argument, other countries who seem to score better tend to focus on fewer objectives. US schools tend to both focus on many objectives and spend a considerable time each year reviewing objectives taught in previous years.

Andy Carvin take on the Time article.

Blogged with Flock

Loading

Participatory Authoring

If:book has a post on a procedure Larry Lessig used to update “Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.” I have a copy of the original (published in 1999) buried somewhere on a shelf. The topics while still relevant required work because Lessig’s writing explores legal issues (laws change) and technology (change happens here too). After a time in print, Lessig released his book as a wiki and allowed readers to edit, comment, etc. Lessig then took this body of material and wrote Code V2. To be fair to contributors and also because he suggests that a copy of the new book would be cheaper than printing the wiki, the wiki version of the updated book is also available. Lessig is in a very different situation than many authors, but I really like the idea of building reader particiaption into the authoring process.

Loading