Thing 15

The content with this Thing had some interesting information to view and digest. The first extremely evocative video brought home again how much of what students hear and learn in the classroom is completely irrelevant to their lives. In all candor, I felt much the same as the student in the video when I was in the midst of my undergraduate education back in 1976 at a very large public university. The difference was that most of us didn't have other options for learning.



At that time, I completed many research papers at the university's extremely large library. I had a pass to go into the stacks, and poking around the books and finding a carrel to settle into was one of my favorite experiences as a student. In some ways, this might have been similar to what students experience today when they do a search on the web, although a lot slower! The excitement of finding information pertaining to your subject, the agony of sifting through mounds of information and trying to form a coherent argument, and the immense satisfaction of completing a cogent, polished product ~ it may be only relevant to a few, but it can be immensely satisfying. In contrast to today, however, the research and work that I did was essentially completed in a vacuum. Until graduate school, there was rarely any collaborative effort whatsoever, with the only exchange being a few notes made on the paper after it had been returned.



When I contrast this with what is possible today, with all of the tools available to learners of all ages, I am humbled by the possibilities. We are certainly faced with many difficult challenges, but we also have ways like never before to share information and innovations. These possibilities extend into the classroom. Will American history ever be relevant to the lives of eighth graders? Maybe not. But, by harnessing the technological tools available we can make the means by which they learn it more relevant and interesting. And if it's something they can discuss in present day terms with their social network? It's probably a lesson they'll remember.



When I finished undergrad, I thought (and hoped) that there must be a better and more satisfying way to learn, something that would approximate the wonderful, expansive feeling that I had when I read a great work of literature or a heard well-reasoned argument. I was lucky to have experiences like this later in my academic career. We all read a lot today about how our schools are driven by the tests and in many cases this is true. But I also think that we can go beyond this by offering students an entirely new format in which to learn. I'm very excited about what this will mean for their learning experience and for how this can give them that same wonderful feeling of poking amongst the dusty stacks and finding that great idea that will make them say "Aha, so this is what it means to be human."