Will goes off on an outstanding rant that originated in what he saw at an education conference this past weekend sponsored by New York’s public television station.
However, his concerns have little to do with what the speakers had to say in their talks. The problem is they way they said it and, even worse, how they all seemed to be speaking in isolation.
But here’s the thing that’s giving me the most angst. (Hey, I haven’t been too angsty in a while, have I?) For all of the experts and scholars and pundits who were staking out a part of the conversation about educational reform, I couldn’t help leaving there wondering how many of them really have a sense of the changes that are afoot here.
I looked up a whole bunch of the names of the presenters and I could only find a handful that have any real Read/Write Web footprint that would allow me to consider them to be a part of my network. And worse, it was painfully obvious by their death by PowerPoint presentation styles that their own adoption of technology as a communication tool not to mention a networked learning tool left a great deal to be desired. The governors, the state superintendents, the consultants…from none of them did I get the sense that they could give a great response to a request to model their uses of technology to teach and learn effectively, especially in the context of networks.
There’s much more to his post and any summary I attempted wouldn’t do it justice. Go read it all.
But the short answer to his questions is no.
It’s not at all unreasonable for us to expect that these presenters, and educators in general, become part of the larger network and offer their ideas for discussion in the larger education community.
Nope. Sounds like Will is right on target.