John Connell: The Blog

The point is not to interpret the world but to change it.

Re-Framing Education for the 21st Century

Posted on | April 21, 2007 | 7 Comments

Thanks to Stabilo Boss for the image.

This was the rather understated title I used for my talk to the e-Learning Alliance annual conference today, held at the Beardmore Hotel in Clydebank. I promised the assembled gathering that I would post all the links I used in my talk, so here they are:

I referred to my previous position as Director of SSDN (now Glow).

And, of course, I mentioned the job I am currently doing for Cisco in the Emerging Markets.

My starting point was a statement from Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Schools in Paramatta Diocese, Sydney. Take a look at some of Greg’s presentations archived on his site, and see a pragmatic visionary at work! I quote Greg here:

“Technology is changing the way we live, communicate and learn. It also enables educators to re-frame schooling in order to meet the needs of twenty-first century learners.”

I like the statement from Jared Diamond, from his much-sold book, Collapse: “The crux of success is to know which core values to hold on to, and which to discard and replace when times change.”

Diamond’s words are in relation to those societies in history that thrived while others disappeared – I think education also has to take a long hard look at the values it reflects.

I made reference to Jonathan Porritt’s book: Capitalism: as if the world matters. His ‘5-Capitals’ Framework is interesting, and he offers a set of values for a sustainable planet that would serve equally well as values for a 21st Century education system.

I slightly misquoted Bhutan’s preferred measure for national success: Gross National Happiness.

I referred to a great piece of work from Paul Anderson on behalf of the JISC: “What is Web 2.0: Ideas, Technologies and Implications for Education.” This offers one of the best and most comprehensive definitions of Web 2.0 that I have seen anywhere, and that includes anything from Tim O’Reilly! The JISC continues to produce white papers of the highest quality in many areas of technology – it is a national treasure!

I did not give the reference to this in my talk, but a nice collection of social software logos can be found on this Flickr site.

Some of the basic sites I mentioned are, of course, Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, GarageBand. And some information on RSS and podcasting can be gleaned here and here – but feel free to investigate both of these phenomena further. An interesting attempt to steal some of Wikipedia’s thunder can be seen, still in its early stages, at: Citizendium.

The New Horizon Report, a joint effort by the New Media Consortium and Educause is an authoritative and thoughtful attempt to look at the prospects for social networking and the web over the next few years. It’s focus on user-created content, social networking, mobile phones, virtual worlds, the ‘new scholarship’ and massively multiplayer educational gaming points to some of the key trends to make an impact in education.

The Nesta Futurelab report on Social Software and Learning is a brilliant paper on the inter-relationship between, on the one hand, a change in the ‘view of what education is for’, and on the other hand, ‘the rapid proliferation of technologies which are less about narrowcasting to individuals than the creation of communities and resources in which individuals come together to learn, collaborate and build knowledge.’ The latter is, in itself, a great definition/description of social software, but the report goes deeply into this area.

I mentioned the thoughts (from left-field, as I described them) of my good friend, Robert Skey – I posted on his words a while ago.

Nick Carr’s blog can be found at roughtype.com, and I made reference to his description of the generational change in office suite applications over the years.

Writely is now Google Docs, part of the Google Apps Suite – you can choose the range of apps you need depending on whether you are a small business, an enterprise, in education, or at home.

Zoho also offers a very interesting range of applications in its suite; and Adobe is getting in on the act with the announcement of an online version of Photoshop.

Colleagues and friends in East Lothian have been doing some stupendous work in this area, first with the concept of Extreme Learning, and now with EduBuzz. To put some flesh on the bone, visit the blogs of Don Ledingham, David Gilmour and Ewan McIntosh.

I like the work of Brian Alger – I don’t agree with everything he writes, but I enjoy being challenged by his thoughtfulness and his use of language.

Ivan Illich’s ‘three purposes’ of a good education system can be found, of course, in his seminal work: Deschooling Society – the full text is available online Look for a section entitled: “General Characteristics of New Formal Educational Institutions” for his thoughts on the three purposes.

Stephen Heppell has been in the forefront of thinking in this area for a long time now, and it is only now that so many are starting to realise just how percipient he has been in his writing and his speaking over the years.

And, if you have not yet read any of Richard Feynman’s writings, do so now!

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Category: Web 2.0, capitalism, creativity, curriculum, education, enlightenment, globalization, glow, higher education, ict, knowledge, philosophy, politics, praxis, research, scotland, society, technology

Comments

7 Responses to “Re-Framing Education for the 21st Century”

  1. Webducator.com » Blog Archive » 1
    April 22nd, 2007 @ 7:09 am

    [...] 04/21/2007 01:46 PM Re-Framing Education for the 21st Century His 5-Capitals Framework is interesting, and he offers a set of values for a sustainable planet that would serve equally well as values for a 21st Century education system. I slightly misquoted Bhutans preferred measure for national … [...]

  2. Reframing Education for the 21st Century « HeyJude
    April 22nd, 2007 @ 11:15 am

    [...] Reframing Education for the 21st Century April 22, 2007 Posted by Judy O’Connell in Web 2.0. trackback My friend John Connell has kindly posted the main links covered in his talk to the e-Learning Alliance annual conference. [...]

  3. PaulJ
    April 23rd, 2007 @ 2:53 pm

    I pretty much feel that much of what you and Steve came away with on Friday was from the same hymn sheet, and is in line with the message I use.

    However, perhaps now more than ever, I am worried about the lack of progress we are making with e-Learning in Scotland/UK.

    At the moment, the money for the technology is in the education system, yet there is still a great deal of fear circulating about e-Learning.

    And having spent a great deal of money for a number of years, the e-learning budgets in the public and private sectors seem to be drying up, whilst past projects show little evidence of radically transforming the training & development proposition.

    Stagnatin could perhaps be an appropriate term.

  4. Neil Livesey
    April 25th, 2007 @ 5:25 pm

    History is repeating itself again. Look at FE and what happened with VLEs when there was no content available. Until there is high quality content it is difficult to introduce high quality e-Learning.. Having worked on BBC jam for 2 years I’m dismayed that this service was suspended as it would have made a significant impact on e-Learning and specifically in support for the self supported learner.

    I wait to see what the commercial sector will produce to stimulate e-Learning.

  5. OLDaily[中文版] » Blog Archive » 2007å¹´4月24æ—¥
    April 25th, 2007 @ 7:25 pm

    [...] 这是一次会议谈话的文字概要，介绍了谈话中涉及到的大量链接，主题是”教育中的Web2.0″。（译注：其中有一张对照图，提供了数量巨大的各种Web2.0应用）不过要注意一点，这一点也困扰我有一段时间了。作者写到，”在英国东洛锡安区的同事和朋友们，在此领域已作出了大量的工作。” 这很好。但是西洛锡安区呢？我们怎么没有听到丝毫来自他们的消息？应该有故事讲讲他们，希望有人能做做这个！John Connell, Weblog April 24, 2007 [原文链接] [Tags: Web 2.0] [参与评论] [...]

  6. PaulJ
    April 26th, 2007 @ 8:48 am

    Is this not where web 2.0 comes in.

    With the use of an effective teacher / guide / mentor and google, is there not already a great deal of content available in electronic format that can be incorporated within our training and development.

    Where there are gaps, we have numerous tools that allow us to easily develop electronic content from existing teaching materials – either collaboratively or as a subject expert.

    And following numerous public sector funded projects, the gaps of generic content is minimal (but there is an issue of getting access to content that is held within publicly funded organisation).

    It’s not the content that’s a problem, it’s a lack of innovation and willingness to use the resources which are available to us.

  7. John Connell
    February 13th, 2008 @ 1:48 am

    In response to a previous comment re: BBC Jam.

    Whilst this was a shame as it is a complete waste of money, is no-one asking the question what could have the commercial sector have done if they had been given this budget?

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