web 2.0: new tools, new schools Chapt. 1

While reading Chapter 1, these words kept jumping out at me: communication, connection, creativity and collaboration. I think this sums up web 2.0 pretty well. I bought right into their argument when the authors quoted both Daniel Pink and Thomas Friedman as well as several other forward thinking authors.

The bullets on page 18 highlight key points for me, particularly that we need to focus on more than content mastery and unless teachers are well-trained and supported, students will not master 21st Century skills. Our administrators must be on board with support and our teachers must be willing to learn new skills and how to apply them to their styles of teaching. After 20 plus years of teaching, I know change is difficult for many educators who see no reason to change the way they teach. I agree with David Jakes' list of how to make innovation "stick" (p. 22-23). I won't list them here, but so often in education we skip these steps and just wait for innovation to happen.

Literacy today has a very different meaning than literacy of the past centuries. We test on the old skills (and I'll try to ignore the soap box that just appeared with NCLB written on it) but our students need these new literacies to succeed in their futures.

Finally, I was taken by this quote on p. 19 from Learning for the 21st Century "Today's education system faces irrelevance unless we bridge the gap between how students live and how they learn." I think for many students we are already irrelevant. High achieving students "play the game" to reach their goals of graduation and higher education. Other students hide with their ipod buds under hoodies and tune us right out. I want to be relevant. I want to excite students and get them jazzed about learning. I think web 2.0 tools may be the vehicle for many of our students.