Pavan Arora scaring the children, and telling us that everything we learned (because most of have been out of university for at least 4 or 5 years...) is now obsolete. Run for the hills and hide your degrees! Labor I'm going to do something CRAZY here and combine my extra post on this additional reading with our prompt for the week: "how do you take up teaching in a world where knowledge is becoming obsolete?" Of course, the title of the TedXFoggyBottom video is a bit sensational... knowledge is not becoming obsolete, but rather, it's becoming a commodity. Certainly our access to knowledge has exploded... I remember the world before YouTube was more than just cat videos, around 2005/2006.... it was much harder to learn something! You had to find a book or article about it, or track down someone who could teach you. Pavan argues that knowledge is getting updated all the time, and that the Pluto you learned was a planet is no longer a planet. We are trying to prepare students for jobs that don't even exist yet, a claim that I think goes unchallenged all too often. For example, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019), the fields that have the highest number of new projected jobs are in health care (specifically, personal care aides), food preparation and serving, registered nurses, followed by software development for the next 7 years. None of those things are new jobs. Working your way down the list also doesn't seem to yield any mysterious unheard of professions or jobs. Now, are there jobs that are dying because of technology, or changing because of it? You betcha... but we aren't seeing a reinvention of the wheel. In fact, as Trump pointed out once, cars have 4 wheels. A fun exercise is googling old ads for things we thought would exist in about 10 years, and which still don't exist 65 years later. Here is a magazine cover from around 1965. Can't wait for my flying hover car, made possible with the power of plastics! Pavan says that our knowledge has an expiration date, and that augmented reality will allow us a quantum leap in educational possibilities (I happen to agree with him there, when the tech gets good enough). However, I'd argue that if you want to master something, that still does mean you need to internalize a LOT of facts and knowledge. There are certainly professions that require a lot of updating your knowledge, but you always start with a very large base of knowledge that is mostly unchanging. Math is still math. Mechanics still fix cars that still have moving parts. Now they swap out computer chips too sometimes, but the base job is the same, for example. Carpenters are still building houses out of wood and concrete, not zeros and ones. Sure, the tools they use are cooler and fancier, but the base job remains intact. Computer programmers have been coding since the 1950's. I've heard the prediction that computers will be coding themselves in 5 or 10 years... speaking to a former student of mine (find him here) doing his Masters in Computer Science has put my mind to rest. We are far away from that if he is to be believed. Technology IS creating new jobs, and changing old ones, but I feel like the headline always gets over sensationalized. Does the technology available to teachers nowadays have massive potential to change what and how we learn? I'd say YES! However, you don't spend 10,000 hours becoming an expert at something by not committing anything to memory. At the same time, I'm not saying that YouTube isn't the best thing since sliced bread, because it is. I see the power of social networks, and the GREAT potential of all this knowledge we have at our finger tips. What is a teacher to do? I would argue that learning how to learn is and always was a very important skill to have. As teachers, we can now offer students the ability to choose their own curriculum and learn whatever they want. I have experimented with this in my Grade 12 Computer Science class, which is completely project based. Students write me a proposal for what they want to learn, I provide them with resources and they also identify their own online resources (my school is nice enough to always allow me to spend money on the students if they need books, programs, parts, whatever) and the students learn whatever they choose to learn. There is a lot of dialogue, reflection, and documenting that goes on, and most students seem to enjoy the process of choosing what they learn. This is the power of the technology and knowledge (YouTube) that we have today! One of my favourite videos of all time is actually Derek Mueller's "This will revolutionize education" (Derek Mueller has been on various TV shows, including Bill Nye Saves the World. He has a successful YouTube channel and a Ph.D in Physics Education--Love the way he explains things). I've always loved history (even though I haven't studied nearly enough of it!). I believe there is value in examining the past, and what Mr. Mueller does in his video is investigate why the teaching profession has failed to live up to all sorts of wild claims about how a new technology will change education forever. He then discusses a bit about where we are going, the power of social learning and YouTube, and what he thinks is the best way forward for educators in our tech-driven world. Worth a watch, it clocks in at around 7 minutes. Derek Mueller laying down the law. One of the things that strikes me the most in the video is when Derek says "...we are not limited by the experiences we can give students. What limits learning is what can happen inside the student's head ... No technology is inherently superior to any other ... researchers have failed to investigate how to use the technology to promote meaningful thought processes ... so the question really is, what experiences promote the kind of thinking that is required for learning?" (Derek Mueller, 2014, 4:10-4:49). He goes on to list some recent research where these processes are being investigated. His video isn't all doom and gloom! At 5:30, he discusses why we need teachers at all in the YouTube world, where I suppose one could say, knowledge is obsolete. He basically says that a teacher's job is to inspire and challenge students to want to learn. They guide the social process of learning and keep students accountable. He believes that YouTube will revolutionize education, being the gateway to knowledge, and accessible at any time by anyone with an internet connection. And this post has become too long. End it here. Love to hear what you guys think. Curiously yours, Matteo Works Cited
Arora, Pavan. (2014). Knowledge is obsolete, so now what? YouTube video, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWR5YXm2mRg on October 4, 2019. Mueller, Derek. This Will Revolutionize Education. YouTube video, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c&t=2s on October 4, 2019. United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2019). Occupational Outlook Handbook. Retrieved April 24, 2019 from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/home.htm and https://www.bls.gov/ooh/most-new-jobs.htm Flying Car picture retrieved from https://alexandruduta.com/tag/1960s/ on October 4, 2019.
1 Comment
Dean Vendramin
10/7/2019 09:25:34 pm
Great post. I love hearing stories like the ones you have with your students. That's sounds like a \n amazing program you have going there. The video was very thought provoking and I remember many of the 'advancements' mentioned. I totally believe that learning is social and importance of relationships. I also think that teachers need to model a growth mindset and help students with their learning journeys. I also like the point Mr Mueller made that it is an evolution not a revolution. I found a few sites that listed new jobs from 10 years ago and jobs that might start t exist ... I have seen some changes but really feel we are close to some revolutionary changes. Have you ever watched the did you know videos ... it's been interesting to see the info in these change through the years ... here's the link to the latest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTM06NZOyDQ&vl=en Thanks for making me think
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AuthorMy name is Matteo Di Muro, the original Prairie Boy, and I've been teaching since I was 14. I currently teach mathematics and computer science in Brandon. I try to keep on learning things, and I'm getting onboard with sharing with others, hence this site! Archives
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