A Note to E-learning "Nay Sayers"

E-learning is here to stay.  You may as well buy into it, get good at it, and add your voice to the

conversation.  "Nay Sayers" are viewed as obstructionists. You don't want to be "one of those people".

Is e-learning the magic bullet?  No.  The magic is in you. The magic is in your students.    

There are, however, some really good reasons to develop the e-learning option in your room.

• Front-loading content saves classroom time for activities and performance-based assessments.
• It allows students to explore and create.
• Online activities can be differentiated to meet student capacity.
• The quiet students in your classroom may feel more comfortable engaging with their peers (and you), in an online forum.
• Forget the copy machine.  Your carbon footprint just got smaller. 

These are just a few important reasons why jumping on the e-learning bandwagon makes sense. No, e-learning isn't a magic bullet. But, it just might prove to be an asset that improves student learning and engagement. Isn't that what your classroom is all about?

The 21st Century School: Think Tank and Research and Development Organizations

Yesterday, I asked my 9 year old son (Turner) how he felt about his performance on the state-mandated assessment he had taken that day.   I felt relieved, of course, when he told me..."it was easy...just the same stuff we've already learned".

Turner is a case study of a kid who likes going to school.  Primary education can work for students who are comfortable with a social learning model.  I am concerned, however,  about his motivation as he reaches the middle school years.

These years comprise huge developmental changes for children across physical, cognitive, social, and emotional domains. They are "experienced".  They know what school is like.  A continuation of "more of the same" wears thin for these students. Instead, infusing the curriculum with a variety of pedagogical approaches centered upon problem-based learning, has the potential to re-engage the middle years student in the process of learning. Perhaps, to even ignite their love of learning.

In many ways, secondary students are ready to become a part of defining solutions to our world problems.  They are old enough to know that the world is not the illusion that we presented to them during their primary years. The illusion that we can protect them and shelter them from the problems that generations of world citizens have created.

Today, more than ever, students are savvy in ways that preceding generations were not.  They are both innocent and wise. Child-like and worn. They have glimpsed the real world and they know that there is much to do.

Flipping or Flipping Out?

What if we REALLY flipped it? What if our current workforce was infused with the ideas, gifts, and interests of today's students, instead of the other way around?

Currently,  unless a youngster is a gifted entrepreneur, it takes 40 to 50 years for the average person to have any sort of impact on the bureaucracy of business and government. For young people, this is a grueling and exhausting path that squashes motivation and desire.

The age of technology has shown that we are still a country of innovators and pioneers. Yet, we grind our children through a seemingly endless process of practice runs and assessments before we let them try out their own ideas. Honestly, our mistakes are really pretty glaring.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we have a host of economic, political, and environmental problems.

We need to quit tinkering with education and find ways to engage students in solving the problems that face their generation, right now. We need to bring them to the table much earlier and reward them. 

Flipping, in this sense, requires a change in the way we overlap and infuse education and work. There needs to be multiple avenues into the real world that students can access at much younger ages.  We can't really afford to wait.  What we are doing now is simply wasting one of most valuable resources: the gifts, interests, and ideas of our young.