Thoughts provoked. . .

The video referenced in my last post keeps popping up in my thoughts from time to time. It seems to be trying to make itself a part of my developing educational philosophy. As fate would have it, my instructor picked up on the video and used it as material for a class discussion forum. We were asked to identify three of the main ideas of the video. Well, I was motivated to abstract the whole presentation, and then I selected three points to use in the class forum.

This is significant enough to me that I wish to share my full outline here.

Traditional methods of instruction are obsolete in the 21^st century due to the fact that the amount of information available to today’s students is unlimited, and they know how to access it.

The role of a teacher now becomes not providing information, but filtering information, teaching students to be responsible and critical users of information with the following skills:

• Validation
• Synthesis
• Leveraging
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Ability to solve problems

People need to be able to create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember information.

Some of today's forms of creation are new: blogging, podcasting, programming; some have been used before: animating, planning, recording, designing.

Technical skills are also important: paraphrasing, attributing, subscribing, editing, twittering, experimenting, reflecting, tagging, commenting, searching, posting, locating, linking, integrating, networking, bookmarking, mashing, uploading.

Ethical values are also needed: responsibility, reliability, and integrity.

New tools and learning problems are needed to teach these skills and values.

Lessons need to be relevant, challenging, and engaging.

21st century tools should be used to engage, not entertain.

Engagement	Entertainment
Active	Passive
For learning	For enjoyment
Long-term results	Short-lived
Meaningful & applicable	Does not require relevance
Solves problems	Allows escape from problems
Uses creativity of the participant	Uses creativity of others

Teachers should provide meaningful and powerful engagement that is fun and exciting.

It all starts with ME, with the help and encouragement of colleagues.