{"id":3310,"date":"2014-09-28T23:31:18","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T04:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3310"},"modified":"2020-07-25T18:58:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T23:58:26","slug":"a-not-so-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-the-future-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3310","title":{"rendered":"A Not-So-Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future (2004)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Not-So-Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a9 2004 Gary S. Stager<\/p>\n

Published by the NECC Daily Leader<\/em> conference newspaper on June 22, 2004<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

The computer is not just an advanced calculator or camera or paintbrush; rather, it is a device that accelerates and extends our processes of thought. It is an imagination machine, which starts with the ideas we put into it and takes them farther than we ever could have taken them on our own.\u201d \u00a0(Daniel Hillis,<\/a> 1998)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is an incredibly dark period for education. Perennial challenges are now accompanied by name-calling and public policy based on \u201cgetting tough\u201d with third graders. Perhaps decision-makers just don\u2019t know what learning in the digital age could look like. They need to see how kids not only learn old things in new ways, but construct personal understanding of powerful ideas in a rigorous computationally-rich fashion. Computers are today\u2019s dominant intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression.<\/p>\n

Computers offer kids the means of production for learning via previously off-limit domains, including: music composition, filmmaking, robotics, computer science, journalism and engineering.<\/p>\n

If only there were a place where compelling models of new educational practice could be shared\u2026 Welcome to NECC!<\/p>\n

A few years ago, educators ceased talking about computing and started talking about technology. Suddenly computing, this remarkable invention of 20th century ingenuity, capable of transforming every intellectual domain, was dead without so much as an obituary. Conference speakers soon spoke of computers being\u00a0just technology<\/em>\u00a0– like a zipper or Pez dispenser. This rhetorical shift liberated educators from learning to use computers, rethink the nature of curriculum or change practice to embrace the expansive opportunities afforded by computing. Information became the focus, not what kids\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0with computers.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1970s my junior high required every 7th grader to learn to program a computer in nine weeks. The feelings of intellectual elation I experienced programming are indescribable. I didn\u2019t know what was impossible so everything was possible. The computer amplified my thinking and the habits of mind I developed in Mr. Jones\u2019 class serve me every day.<\/p>\n

Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak enjoyed similar experiences. Imagine how the world would be different if some smart adults had not procured a mainframe and some terminals and said to Gates and Wozniak, \u201cSee what you can figure out. Have fun. Lock up when you\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do your children\u2019s school computing experiences compare? Do all students have access to creative tools anytime anyplace? Does the school culture inspire a thirst for knowledge and support authentic project-based work?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve lowered standards when twelve year-olds in my junior high are NOW being taught to find the return key in a mandatory keyboarding class. Someday they may be \u201ctaught\u201d to surf a filtered locked-down crippled Web incapable of downloading, rich media or collaboration all in the name of preparing them for the future. Some future.<\/p>\n

Adults talk of how kids know so much about computers, how they are so competent, confident and fluent. Then those kids come to school and are treated like imbeciles or felons. Kid power is a gift to educators. We need to build upon those gifts and channel their students in directions they might not know exist. If kids came to school readers, we wouldn\u2019t grunt phonemes at them. We would read better literature.<\/p>\n

When many of us first attended NECC, we viewed the personal computer as not only a window on the future, but a microscope on the past. We\u00a0knew<\/em>\u00a0how all sorts of learners exceed our wildest expectations when equipped with computers and constructionist software. Personal experience illuminated how the existing pencil-based curriculum was failing kids. Optimism filled the air.<\/p>\n

Look around and you might conclude that the state-of-the-art includes: classrooms as game shows; data mining to justify standardized testing; reading as a winner-take-all race; and hysterical network security. \u201cTechnology\u201d is being touted as a way to centralize control and breathe life into the least effective teaching practices of yore.<\/p>\n

Widespread consensus is hard to achieve, especially on complex matters like education. Nonetheless, the educational computing community seems to have decided that our children should look forward to a future filled with testing and Microsoft Office instruction. Tests about Microsoft Office could achieve two national goals.<\/p>\n

NECC attendees are pioneers entrusted with helping schools realize the potential of the imagination machine and as Gladwell suggests serve as the 10th Fleet in revolutionizing the context for learning. Go home and share the fabulous ideas you collect here in the Big Easy, but remember that the kids you serve expect big things from you and it won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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