This was the conference that I attended yesterday. I have to
admit that on my way there, I had been hoping that it would end early because I
had so many errands to run. But it did not end early and I was not disappointed
because it had succeeded in making me think! More specifically, it made me
think about how technology can help us teach better than ever.
The first example that November gave us that illustrates the
change in what we can teach and now expect from our students, is how we are no
longer limited in the sources of information that our children have access to.
If we give students an assignment to write about an event in history they are
no longer limited to using only sources from their own country. They can access
sources from other countries to understand other perspectives on that event and
then learn from these differing perspectives.
Of course this access to other sources also means that we
have lost control over what sources are available to our students and it is
critically important that we teach them to analyze what they read. Two very
important elements that we need to teach them is to look at who is producing
the content that they read and how to confirm which of two conflicting sources is
correct. The examples that November gave us for teaching who is producing
content were a “.org” page owned by someone who does harm to that cause and an
article that superficially looked like it was produced by a well renowned
university but was actually produced by a student at that university who did
not have his facts straight.
Alan November also showed us numerous websites that offer
terrific learning and teaching opportunities. Here are some that I intend to
explore further: Diigo, WolframAlpha, Kaizena, Mathtrain.tv,
Clubacademia, ScreenChomp, Scratch, Edx, FanFiction. I have to admit that
none of the things discussed at this conference were things that I could do
with my early primary class that I currently teach. However I did spend much of
the day thinking about what skills we should be teaching our students in the
early primary grades in order to enable them to be successful learners in
tomorrow’s world.
It does seem reasonable to expect that the future of
learning will be more about setting up individualized learning programs for
children and the teacher’s role will be to assess where a student is at and use
that information to create a learning program for them. For students to get the
most out of this type of a learning program it is more important than ever for
them to be independent, motivated, and capable learners. This means that early
on in their education we should be teaching children to learn how to learn. In
my online course, Learn Easier Study Better, I stress that learning how to be a
better learner involves understanding
knowing how to motivate oneself, having a “can-do” attitude, developing
confidence in one’s abilities, knowledge of the learning process, and good
practical learning strategies. These are all things that we can and should
teach our children starting at a young age. My passion for teaching my students
how to learn better was definitely fed at yesterday’s conference!
