Imagine…
Recently, I have been having conversations (both with myself and others) about what would it be like to decentralize the (traditional) information flow in school (starting with my classroom) from teacher-centric to student-centric.
I have been thinking about it mostly in terms of grades, since my third marking period grades will be do so and there will be the usual scramble to follow up with students who are missing work and coordinating getting all of that in, etc. etc.
One of the biggest stopgaps is me. I am the holder of all of this information and it is (so the story goes) my job to manage this information and report it out to students and their parents. So I have been wondering about how to decentralize this information.
Then, I saw this piece on Will Richardson’s blog. He was reporting on having listened to a two-year old talk TED presentation by Charles Leadbetter on organizing organizations. He was the part that knocked me out:
He finished with a great
point: Imagine you took all the children currently in school and had
one percent acting as co-developers of education, creating and
publishing materials. What would that do to our educational system?
Imagine the potential in that. Weblogg-ed
So, I am trying to imagine this.
And, in my imagining, I see all the things we have been talking about, like blogs, wikis, and podcasts. I see students becoming, like Hall Davidson says, citizen-journalists, not just observing their world (or worse the already proscribed world of adults) but rather participating and connecting with it in ways that were impossible until recently.
I think the imagining is really worth it. Will you join me?
Blogged with Flock
March 23, 2007 @ 6:22 am
A school where the students are the workers. Instead of students just watching the adults work. I’m on board!
March 23, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
I think about this all of the time: a school where students make choices, take actions in self government, solve problems, and inquire and pursue answers to their own meaningful inquiries. True education and innovation is not spoon fed, but is an active force bubbling up from the students themselves.
There was a great quote in the Charles Leadbetter speech that you send to us which asked us to imagine “..companies (that) are built on communities,” where we “turn users into producers” and “consumers into designers.” Think about the implications of that statement if you change the arena from ‘companies’ to ’schools.’