Here at edACCESS at St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware. Yesterday's keynote was virtual, by Marc Prensky and was on "Losing your digital accent." Things that resonated or made me think:
• The idea of how the light is now on for students. It used to be that students would come to school to learn about the world, and educators would show students the world little by little. He used the analogy of a clearing a window bit-by-bit to see the view beyond. Now, Prensky said, students already are in the world because of TV, the Internet, they already have knowledge and understanding of the world.
• That school is slowing students down. They have all this energy and knowledge and then have to slow down to enter the school environment.
* How students are bored so often in school and not engaged.
• How important it is to involve students, ask their opinions, include them. How many tech plans have been created without any student involvement?
• That teaching the traditional, lecture-based way does not work well with technology, and that technology actually impinges on this approach. This makes a lot of sense and when people say "I don't have time for technology" their shift from teacher as disseminator of knowledge to including more facilitation and coaching is still in process.
This is a terrific conference, by the way, that involves ad hoc focus groups and gives an opportunity to find out about new approaches and issues and to take the pulse of technology at independent schools.
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