When we were shown Ken Robinson's "Changing the Education Paradigm" video in a lecture the other week I was completely blown away. Not so much by the animation, which was amazing in itself, but by the content. I have since read many articles by Sir Ken as well as his latest book "The Element". I know the idea of Creativity in Education has been around for a while but my recent exposure to the concept has set off bells, light globes, whatever the appropriate analogy may be.
In a lot of ways it fits in with what we have been learning about web 2.0 technologies. I have been very wary of the whole web 2.0 thing as I only understood it's applications from a Facebook/Twitter perspective. That's an understatement actually - I avoid it like the plague as my minimal exposure to it has found it to be time consuming (read "wasting time") and full of innane conversations. I'm a talker not a texter - and yes, I could be accused of many a innane conversation! But inanity (is that a word?) hangs around for so much longer when it's there for all to read.
The following video by Sir Ken, along with Charles Leadbetter's video "Education innovation in the slums" has me re-evaluating the whole social network phenomena. If I view web 2.0 technologies within an educational framework, then I am a definite convert. I do believe we have to rethink the ways in which we educate our kids. I think schools can be very un-creative environments and this has a lot do with how we view creativity. It is not about being artistic - which was a bit of a revelation to me and even more surprising given my creative background. If we view it as a way of thinking about things, then it has so many implications for education that it's staggering. I am drawn to teaching so much more because of these possibilities.
While I go away and ponder this some more and if you haven't already seen it, here is Sir Ken on "Changing the Education Paradigm"...
It's interesting to hear how Ken Robinson's work is pushing you to rethink your own perspectives on creativity and, in this case, web 2.0. You're quite right that we can make some strong connections between creativity and the social web.
ReplyDeleteOh, and btw, yes: 'inanity' is a word!
I agree with you. I was amazed by the video when we were shown it, it is fantastic and explains a lot of what we are learning.
ReplyDeleteA visual representation of concepts I think woks far better than words. It makes you watch and think at the same time. It was well done and thanks for putting it in your blog for us to revisit.
After posting I saw my word works is missing the 'r' but don't know how to edit or remove the comment to fix it up! Maybe Mark could explain how he did it on another blog where I saw he had removed his comment?????
ReplyDeleteThe more I read the more I am convinced that this is the way to go. I was staggered to read in Mark's "From Blogs to Bombs", how students at PLC in Sydney were allowed to use the internet/iPods during exams in 2008. This is so in keeping with Ken Robinson's perspective on education. He calls it 21st century skills. The Dean of Middle School, PLC puts it this way, "In their working lives [the students] will never need to carry enormous amounts of information around in their heads. What they will need to do is access information from all their sources quickly and they will nee to check the reliability of their information". Definitely less competitive, more collaborative here!
ReplyDelete