First keynote was familiar to me, as I had already seen Wim Veen deliver his Homo Zappiens presentation at Online Educa Berlin some years ago. He shows how kids grow up in a digital age, and he sure has played his share of games! Here are his slides:
The second keynote speaker was Christophe Batier and he showed how he uses a Facebook-centered approach of social learning with his students. His slides are here:
I'd like to braindump some of the questions that came up during the panel discussion afterwards:
- These trends on gaming, zapping and social learning are not new in the sense that we did not see them coming. In fact, they will not be new to a lot of innovators, blogosphere inhabitants or people that attend conferences (the talks, not the exhibitions). But as with any change, it gets hyped and used first within its set of believers and early adopters, to then go into the 'new normal'. It's usually not the same set of people who innovate and test drive these ideas as the ones who will bring them to widescale adoption. By then the innovators have lost interest and moved on. For me, it is important to guide as much people into these new ways of working, and the best motivator for others to overcome their fears of change is to show success. Show that it works and it's not scary.
- On the question if education should adapt to the expectations of digital natives, versus the other way around my take is : I trust the educational system to get it right. I know there are a lot of people calling for a revolution (You might have seen Sir Ken Robinson accusing our schools of killing creativity, or the movie trailer of We are the people we've been waiting for move, or that annoying child shouting are you gonna be my teacher?... ). The education system is designed to deal with the challenges of a few centuries ago: the industrial age. It needs retuning, some of it rather drastic. But a vast system like education that eats up large parts of the GDP, employs thousands of people, is owned by the government, and touches the lives of everyone will not change overnight. But there are so many interesting experiments going on in lots of schools that I remain positive. So I restate: I trust education to get it right. I hope it is soon enough to make the most impact for this century.
- On the question what schools should teach the digital natives : There is so much content out there, maybe we should not focus on it that much anymore. I referred to the excellent and free ebook of Stephen Downes on what to learn. It starts with a section "Things you really need to learn.". Here is Stephen's list of what will get you through life:
- How to predict consequences
- How to read
- How to distinguish truth from fiction
- How to empathize
- How to be creative
- How to communicate clearly
- How to learn
- How to stay healthy
- How to value yourself
- How to live meaningfully
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