“Change is Permanent”
This was the slogan on a college friends homemade bumper sticker. After all these years, I still like this slogan because it’s true! While working on a Change Management job and reading Connectivism Blog, I was reminded of the significance of “change”.
In his article, It’s not about tools. It’s about change, George Siemens says:
Since I’ve started blogging and playing around with social technologies, most of my connections and contacts have been made within the educational or technology field. I connect with individuals who are aware of blogs (or might even be bloggers) and what’s called Web 2.0…and more recently expressed as Personal Learning Environments. When I step outside of this fairly insular network [emphasis mine], I need to operate on an entirely different set of assumptions and language. Have you tried sitting down with a colleague and talking about using Pageflakes to aggregate distributed/fragmented conversations through RSS? How about telling them that the best way to stay informed about emerging technology and trends is to use “live” search engines like Technorati or Icerocket? Use Google alerts to stay informed on a subject of interest? Use Trailfire to share browsing habits/history/commentary? StumpleUpon to comment on Web sites? Social bookmarking with del.iocio.us? Tags? Folksonomies? Creative Commons? Let’s not even get into digg or social news sites and user recommendations and ratings.
Oh wait, I know, how about we tell them how to create and edit a podcast with Audacity? Better yet, the value of collaborative work with wikis…or more precisely, with Coventi. Or lets really let loose and tell them how easy it is to mashup data with Pipes? Or how to dress their avatar in Second Life? And, for good measure, let’s share with them how all of this relates to Vygotsky, Papert, or Piaget. Wow, what fun we can have with family and friends!
Siemens goes onto to discuss the need for true change (not “window dressing”) within the learning field–with an emphasis on paradigms shifts, not only tool and jargon changes.
I like Mr. Siemens thinking on this issue. This is one of the topical threads that WeirdGuy speaks to on a regular basis. To me, here is another clarion call for outside intervention. Much like the software industry is pushed for change by it’s users, educational and teaching methodologies need the same kind of influx. A synergy, vision, and ongoing dialogue from the creative, technology, community, and learning disciplines (and practitioners and students) can help to advance significant change in this area.
The only items I would throw into the mix are the concepts of Fun and Play. See, For Grown Ups Too–Learning Must Be Fun, and the vision of the National Institute for Play. I believe the integration of these ideas into education and learning can truly create an evolving structure for the future generations of students and learners.
So, what do you think?
WeirdGuy Creative 