2 Big Questions

Over the recent 2 week October holidays we have here in Scotland I spent an inordinate amount of time watching and listening to various presentations from the K12 Online 2007 Conference.

The last day of the conference was devoted to a marathon 24hr live online discussion via elluminate which I was lucky enough to visit on 2 occasions; quite early on when I "met" Joe had a first verbal contact with Paul Harrington. I was enjoyable but there were too few participants to ensure a wide ranging discussion. I also joined later with about and hour to go and it was fascinating. There were educators from all over the world, all kinds of time zones, all talking about the wonderful world of the web.
This was great and I feel happy about my contributions...and shhhh maybe I'll get a few more readers.
However it really brought to mind a couple of big questions that have been turning around my head for a while. Questions to which I have my own ideas for answers but questions which I feel we should all be asking of ourselves and others.

1.    I love web 2.0 stuff and can see the advantages it can bring to education but how can I persuade the 30 year career teacher that it might be worthwhile (for the kids sake) to take a step out of the worksheet comfort zone  and take on the risk on potential failure in the classroom by trying something new?
The thing that just kept leaping into my mind whilst enjoying K12 was that whilst it is great to find same-minded people across the globe, where were the doubters, those that would force us to counter their arguments to help us prove our point. I think that the answer to this conundrum lies in Derek Wenmoth's presentation Holding a Mirror to Professional Practice. The persuasion will come I am sure when more and more of us seriously evaluate the work we are doing and prove to the doubters that this is not just another passing educational fad...like non-competitive sport.

2. When you look at the cluster maps posted on blogs you see swathes of red dots over North America, Europe, Australia/NZ and parts of Asia. The world is often still green across Africa, South America and large parts of Asia...Hmmmm I wonder why? Could this be the developing world? Not only do these parts of the world often miss out on even basic educational (and health) needs how far behind us are they going to be in the wonderful world of the web. (I have often thought about trying to help my brother-in-law in Cameroon set up a cyber cafe, but as he says there's no point, they only get electricity every other day...30km away from the capital city.)
How can our use of web 2.0 technologies help my little nephews and nieces "au village"?
Yes you all cry there's the One Laptop Per Child Initiative, which is a fantastic idea, but they are relying on governments, who struggle to ensure a simple basic level of education for all children, to purchase a huge number of units. If there is intermittent electricity there is hardly likely to be the capacity to create large bandwidth.
The thing I find most frustrating is that at the moment I don't think there is all that much we can do to help. Our governments and big multi-national corporations need to get serious...more serious. STOP ENFORCING ALL DEBT REPAYMENTS, STOP STEALING MINERAL RESOURCES, STOP BRIBING EASILY ENCOURAGED OFFICIALS. Then maybe individuals like myself and many of you out there in blogger world can kick in.

This article from the BBC shows people are starting to think abpout how to address this issue. But where will we be in comparison by 2012?

Let me know what you think.

Comments

[loan]

Every body remembers that life is not very cheap, however some people need cash for various things and not every one earns enough money. Hence to receive good home loans and just financial loan will be a proper way out.

[home loans]

If you're in uncomfortable position and have got no money to get out from that point, you would require to take the credit loans. Because that would aid you for sure. I take credit loan every single year and feel OK because of that.

[loan]

People all over the world receive the credit loans in different banks, just because that's comfortable.

[Helen24mz]

If you’re disappointed and do not know the correct way to write the original essay, you will have a chance to buy papers online from the professional research paper writing service. That can really save valuable time and money.

[moxomor1]

The essay writing about this topic, students would see at the custom writing services. Order the essays or custom writing about this post.

[dissertation]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!
_______________________________

http://www.dissertation-help.co.uk/

[Krysia]

Hi Adam,

tbh, I'm not sure. My dissertation didn't really prove anything but it did give me food for thought. It made me have a double think regarding teachers of long service.

Some of the written responses from a teacher of 37 and another of 38 years were amazing; things such as foriegn secondment and a willingness to learn from new teachers.

[Adam Sutcliffe]

Thanks for your comment Krysia. Its a very interesting observation you make. Could it be that teachers at this stage in their careers with still a wee while to go are afraid that changing their practice could have an adverse effect on their career path; maybe their thoughts are of headship and they don't want to rock the boat?
Adam

[Krysia]

Hi Adam, I've been following your blog for a wee while now.

I have no answers to your questions but heres something I found out. You say: "how can I persuade the 30 year career teacher that it might be worthwhile", I figured that people who have been teaching for a LONG time are actually quite receptive to change. They have been teaching long enough to have an deep interest in their lifelong career. It is more the middle educator, who has been teaching on avg 16 years who is much less receptive.

How do I know this? In my dissertation last year I got responses from app 500 teachers about the concept of change/sharing practice. It was really clear from the responses that teachers in this group were much less positive about a whole range of stuff.
It was food for thought for me. Maybe it was just the sample, but I found it interesting.

Thanks for the interesting read :)