In her comment, Mrs. Dewey makes many good points like, “The big question for us (schools) is how will we prepare our children to compete in this new job market (Information Economy)? As our economy has shifted over the years from agriculture to industry, to technology we have suffered growing/changing pains; but the end result has always been an improved standard of living for all Americans.”
My question is how will schools do this? Should this preparation begin in elementary school?
My answer is absolutely yes!!!! Technology instruction should become a seamless part of the general curriculum – not a separate subject. For example, teachers can use blogging to learn and demonstrate learning, they can use eProjects from ePals to name just two ways technology instruction can be seamless and not a separate subject.
Mrs. Dewey agrees, “I feel it is imperative to expose, inspire and train our students to use the technology demanded by the global workplace. Hence, I am a believer in “Schools being places that prepare children for society and the workplace.”
Two other questions Mrs. Dewey asks are also important, “How will we level the playing field for our disadvantaged students? Will the gap widen as a result of their inequitable access and experiences?”
With the new Dell lease in place this coming school year no child while they are in school will lack access. Their are four student workstations in each classroom, eight portable computer laptop labs, one computer lab with the real possibility of having a second one opened up. Teachers need to provide their students with lessons/tasks on the computers that seamlessly integrate technology into the school curriculum. One neat lesson that I found was The Lunch Box Project that I had talked about in an earlier posting. Check it out!
4 responses so far ↓
1
Mrs. Dewey
// Jul 25, 2008 at
Hi All,
I am nearing the end of “The World is Flat” and thought I would share more of my thoughts with you. Please excuse the spelling mistakes and the note style of my comments. My new laptop’s spell check isn’t working and I’m short on time so I will jot big ideas in places instead of writing out sentences.
The first section discusses the changes in our political, technological and social environments across the modern world. Friedman calls these changes and devlopments flatteners. These components enhanced globalization vastly:
1. Fall of communism – brings in many players (workers & buyers & thinkers).
2. Spread of internet – everyone (in the flat world) has access to each other and toalmost unlimited information.
3. Workflow software – jobs can be broken into pieces and can be done anywhere & reassembled anywhere; all systems are compatible.
4. Open source – on-line projects where everyone with access can participate (wikipedia, blogs).
5. Outsource – splitting services/manufacturing into components so that each piece is produced in the most efficient, cost effective location.
6. Off shore – company moves physical location(from US) to take advantage of less costly operations.
7. Supply Chain – improving efficiency and cost by using technology to streamline sales, distribution & shipping.
8. Insource – employees of one company perform servives for another company to improve service and decrease costs.
9. Informing – people across the globe have access to practically unlimited inormation allowing them to satisfy the most specific demands of any buyer from any county with any preferences (Chinese companies can produce games based on old American cartoons or lifestyles because they can research them on the internet – so they have equal opportunity to win a job making such games for American children as the American companies whos workers grew up on those cartoons).
10. Steroids – personal devices that bring all the other pieces into a person’s hands allowing him/her to make their interacts specific and personal.
These “flatteners” became intrenched in societies, and then meshed and enhance each other. Then people were able to and began collaborating with each other horizontally across the globe. The addition of extra brain power/knowledge from the previous communist countries combined with these factors to boost globalization to a whole new level. This increased interconnection will produce value as we have never seen before and the standard of living will improve for all. As the cost drops to communicate with the opposite side of the world we (Westeners) will have to become more ingenious. The job before us now will be to be creative and imaginative; to see the needs and desires of people and figure out which resources we need to pull together to create the new product or service needed/wanted. Integration! Flexibility! Adaptability! Synthesis! Desire! Are you (is America) up to the challenge? How will we shift education from retaining facts and solving arithmetical problems to learning how to teach ourselves, comprehending the technology, cultures and geography of the world, developing our natural curiousity and passion, collaborate effectively with others, and honing the skills of synthesizing information, and building a desire to lead the world forward into a high-tech future?
I don’t know the answers but I’m excited about the potential changes in education. The opportunity to be involved as we develop new strategies and programs for our children is thrilling!
Until next time – Mrs. Dewey
PS: I’m sad that you will not be here to help SHES implement some of the new technology as we strive to move forward in the globalized world!
2
maymun
// Jul 25, 2008 at
Thank you for your thoughtful commentary and explanation of Friedman’s book. Well done! I am glad that you are where you are and are knowledgeable about the future faced by the students in your school. They are lucky to have such a forward thinking person in a leadership postion.
I too am sad that I will no longer be at SHES but I truly desire to be closer to curriculum and eventually back in a classroom for a time. I want to work on some of the ideas I have been developing in the area of technology integration and instruction directly with students.
Let’s keep the conversation going!
3
Mrs. Dewey
// Jul 25, 2008 at
A few last things on “The World Is Flat”:
Well, I have finished reading my book. It has been informative, inspiring, thought-provoking, and eye-opening! As I read this book I jotted down things I thought were key points and important ideas. I thought I would share these with you since I have finished this book. This was alot of information and I will need processing time. I hope anyone reading this blog will find my comments interesting and will be inspired to read the book yourself. My notes surely miss some of the key points but I have high lighted many. There are summaries on-line of this book but they are very limited in scope and you will miss out on important ideas as well as explainations that help cement the ideas (you know the way you learn is to connect new ideas to old ones and you will be able to remember it ;0) if you just read these summaries.
Here are my notes:
Thinking Points:
Today’s children are competing with people all across the world thanks to technology. (Internet research, blogging, shopping, entertainment (games – videos)!
We require children to excel at specific academic skills – we do not focus on teaching them how to use technology, to educate themselves, and to research and present information in a modern media format.
Jobs in America are and will continue to increasingly become service focused rather than manufacturing based.
Outsourcing- cost some of us jobs but ultimately leads to improved economic situation (everyone grows when more and more people participate and create value – the pie gets bigger).
Homesourcing – advantages of working at home .
Freeware, open source, public domain – experts from all over the world can contribute freely (w/o traveling and time expences) creating a much better product – with free benefits to everyone.
Equalizing of power and opportunity by providing access to information, education, and buyers (of products and labor).
We are in the midst of a social transition; likened to that of Nation-states or the industrial revolution. America is at the forefront, the cutting edge, of this transformation. We must be skilled, creative, imaginative, and think critically and analytically to be successful and maintain our piece of the pie.
Countries that are currently becoming industrialized can use America’s history as a road map to where they are headed; we are exploring the future and making the map for the countries that are following our progress.
Collaboration will cause serious issues over topics that are not strickly economical (religion, patriotism). Where and how do we draw the line?
People selling items such as words, ideas, and drugs (things that require huge amounts of R&D or are thought produced) are in great danger at this point of free information access.
We are loosing the personal touch (the fat) from goods/services but isn’t the fat the part that gives it flavor? People like the human touch not dealing with machines; especially when they have a problem. How can we streamline cost while maintaining the human aspect of doing business? Will the human touch become a costly component of goods/services in the future?
Free trade coupled with technology and access in a flat world can easily lead to an economic loss for America because so many more people become available to provide services/work globally which will result in a decrease in wages. But, if we continue as a gobal society to develop new technologies then wages will increase in those areas and skilled workers can move into those jobs. Americans must educate themselves inorder to maintain these higher paying jobs. People in other countries that take lower paying jobs from Americans become purchasers of American servives and goods with their new income – hense helping America economy in the long run.
People are seeing things that used to be wants (Starbucks, Google, PDA, Cell phones) as needs which leads to more and more devlopment and higher standards of living across the world.
Children finish your homework because children in China and Indian are starving for your jobs. (Thomas Friedman) You must make yourself irreplacable; i.e. you don’t want a job that can be outsourced, digitizted or automated, because these can easily be done cheaper somewhere else.
Jobs that are set in place will remain (divorce lawyer, dentist, plummer) where those that do not have to be done at a specific location will go to places that have the cheapest labor. Skill yourself for jobs that are not tradable (anchored jobs). Middle class jobs are being outsourced – America must develop the skills to keep/develop the new middle class jobs.
These new middle class jobs will require: collaboration skills, knowledge of technologies globally (ex:supply chains running 24/7/7), willingness to travel to the current business hotspots, teh ability to inspire and operate in a multicultural environment, and to cordinate, improve, and translate products in a supply chain; making these supply chains more efficient.
These middle class jobs will be in: sales (globally), marketing (multicultural and multidimentional), management (systems, supply and distribution chains across the world), and maintance (data sharing and storage). Also, in recycling, reusing, sustaining, etc., as more and more people use polluting technology.
Just giving more education is not enough! We have to add new attitudes and abilities. Learn how to learn – must constantly absorb new information – what you know will constantly be out of date. Navigation skills – flattening world info on the web (W/o filters) but kids must be able to sift through the info to find the factual/truthful information they need from the rubbish they run across. CQ + PQ > IQ Courisity and passion are of greater value than intelligence; especially in the globalized world. Nobody works harder at learning than a curious kid. Be well –rounded. Liberal Arts provides the background knowledge needed to synthesize (Connecting the Dots) in new situations. LA is about making connections between history, art, polotics, and science perfect training for thinking horizonally.
Being well-rounded is a key characteristic to being marketable in the future. People that are involved in music, sports, sculpture, painting, etc. and are intellectual are better at thinking across topics. They are practiced at integrating their academic knowledge and passion. Further, they have picked up valuable skills needed for collaboration and socializing. We need to keep music, art, drama, etc. in our schools.
The U.S. has the needed infrastructure to continue leading the world. Free-trade is a way of life here and our universities are the best in the world! Research departments at universities spin-off continuous inovations; risk taking is rewarded and is publically funded at universities.
Our cultural willingness to adapt, change, and create is unsurpassed. Our economic base has already shifted (faster and more effecently than any other country) from agricultural to industrial to service based and now we must shift to a global service based economy.
The U.S. is not training scientist and engineers (S&E)in the numbers we need to compete globally for the near future. We have recently cut science/engineering instead of doubling it, as we should have. The number of S&E graduates is declining in the US while the number of jobs requiring that knowledge continues to increase.
Foreign students no longer have to immigrate to America to work at top companies and make top salaries due to the technology boom (fiber optics/wireless, PC’s, internet, compatable software, etc.). They are staying home and the innovations will begin shifting from America’s economy to India’s or China’s. We have to realize the problem now before it’s too late and our advantage has disappeared.
U.S. companies report that outsourcing is cheaper and productivity is increased – they (Asians) work better than Americans and Western Europeans. Those w/o natural resourses dig deeper and work hard to excel. They have a different attitude they “do what it takes” they are hungry for the jobs. American children are growing up wealthy and when they grow up they will compete with Chinese, Japanese, and Indians for jobs.
Companies are following the “Brains”; they are going where the most intelligent math and science students are located. Alot of our high end jobs are starting to go over seas – because the education quality and scope is becoming equalivant – the competition is fierce for top jobs! Companies (Microsoft Asia)are taking those that score at the top of math, program and science tests.
American schools are decentralized and fragmented (50 states and many school districts). When companies (Intel) introduce innovative math and science ideas to schools in Eastern Europe it is universally taught – can’t happen in the U.S. Companies need S&E intellectual base to pull from; US is not producing this in it’s schools and has tightened immigration so that it is difficult to bring it here. We are doing a better job keeping out the desirables (those that come here to learn and stay to build companies) than the undesirables (terrorist).
There are many important issues and points made in this book – it will take me while to absorb all of them and begin to have ideas about what I can do as a school leader and what I think about America’s future. I am an optomist and therefore feel everything will go well for use; however, I am a practicalist and realize we will have to plan for the future and then follow through on those plans if we want to maintain our position of global economic dominance. And it will depend on our children, they will be the ones competing in the flattened world.
I have enjoyed this blog experience; Thanks Dawn. I will continue to remark as I have ideas and ahha moments – maybe only on one or two at a time from now on. Dawn your suggestions and ideas are always wanted no matter where you are teaching.
Another book I am currently reading that is interesting and thought-provoking is “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Diamond (if anyone is interested ??)
Happy Reading – Mrs. Dewey
4
maymun
// Jul 26, 2008 at
Was this book required reading and if so is there/was here discussion of the issues brought forward and how they affect education. Besides buying Interwrite Pads and the CRT systems what else is being done to take advantage of – oh let’s say WEB 2.0 applications (freeware)? The beauty with freeware is its FREE and only requires a computer and imagination. No expensive hardware to buy.
Don’t get me wrong I like the Interwrite pad but it is a sort of portable “blackboard.” Yes you can use it to get out to the Internet and create a blog post as a group, etc., but for those schools lacking the funds (us) we cannot ignore WEB 2.0 potential. Only seven out of what 46 teachers will have this equipment?? Plus I guess an extra three per school now as well…so ten total. There is free stufff out there!!!
*Teachers can create a class blog and post big questions on it that students have to respond to. Essential questions tied to inquiry-based learning projects. Students can share their research on the blog.
*Students can create a website about a topic like…
learning fractions and include visual representations of fractions, like pizzas or pies, etc.
*Students can create a website devoted to their writings and invite authors from the “real world” to comment on their work.
A good (and short) book to read about these kinds of learning experiences is, Empowering Students With Technology, by Alan November. He also has a new one that I have not read yet, Web Literacy for Educators. He does however, address web literacy in his Empowering book. Well worth the time and it includes lesssons.
*You know my favorite of all times, ePals. I still cannot believe that only one teacher used this powerful FREE learning resource yet! This site provides excellent inquiry-based lessons already written up – what could be easier?
Your comment…
“Our cultural willingness to adapt, change, and create is unsurpassed. Our economic base has already shifted (faster and more effecently than any other country) from agricultural to industrial to service based and now we must shift to a global service based economy.”
*I think the country and its people are still reeling and in shock over this last shift, actually a bit paralyzed by it. The shift already happened but many people are calling for more manufacturing jobs to be brought back to the US rather than move forward. That is a very counterproductive mentality but understandable in such uncertain times.
How as educators can we help in this new economy? Are we prepared to restructure (MODERNIZE) our schools to meet 21st century needs? Bill, the Dell trainer made an interesting comment while training us, “Students leave their 21st century homes to arrive at the 19th century school house and then return after school to the 21st century.” I thought how absolutely true this is. Though teachers may be using technology in their instruction, many classrooms are still teacher-centered and very far, very, very, far from the inquiry-based learning (student-centered) that would be the most helpful for 21st century students. Children typically still sit in rows and listen to the teacher at the head of the room present the lesson, then they do a little work on their own, and then they go over work with teacher. Yes, there is also differentiation going on but what is that based on I wonder?
There is much to do to modernize education, it is going to be a long, hard road, much like what the US is experiencing with the global shift.
I just pulled my copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond off my book shelf. I read it many years ago and will reread now.
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