At noon the other day we had an informal professional development activity. About two thirds of our staff met to start a dialogue about the challenges that face educators as we try to provide relevant learning opportunities for our students. The major focus of our discussion was the technological context in which they presently operate and will be required to operate when they enter the work force. We are all a bit overwhelmed by the whole web 2.0 implications. We know that we need to utilize this technology if we hope to keep learning relevant for our student and consequently engaged.
I posed the question - What if you were to stand at the front of your class, on the first day of a new unit, provide them with a list of learning outcomes and say “Here is what you need to know, how are you going to go about it?”
I’m not sure if anyone will go to that extreme, however we sure had a good discussion about what lies ahead and what skills students will need. One of the things that I have to get comfortable with is the idea that such conversations often generate more questions than we could hope to answer.
Two areas that came up time and again during our discussion were problem solving skills and ethics. We pondered how we could help students develop a values base for making ethical decisions about how to conduct themselves in their online world.
I hope that our discussion provided some things for everyone to chew on and that we can continue this dialogue . . .
