- a world where volunteers openly write, edit, and rewrite the largest collection of knowledge artefacts that humankind has ever seen.
- a world where powerful tools exist that redefine our ability to solve problems and help us to visualize what we know in ways that were once not easily possible.
- a world where 72 hours of video is uploaded every minute (and that’s just toYoutube).
- a world where anyone with an Internet connection can learn along with millions of others through connected learning opportunities.
- a world where a 9-year-old blogger can have a greater voice and more external impact than her entire school district.
- a world where institutional & personal reputation is becoming increasingly important, but more so, where qualifiers of reputation are tracked and recorded through your interactions with others.
- a world where views on privacy have changed and where teens are struggling to redefine their social spaces while corporate giants are building their business models on a less private future.
- a world where racist message meant for a few can quickly end up being seen, remixed, and repurposed and viewed by millions, but where those same communication dynamics can allow a young scientist to creatively share her passions.
- a world where bullying incidents can quickly go viral, but where forces of human kindness can help the victims, raise awareness, and foster networks of support.
- a world where the world’s most popular song (the one your kids are singing, dancing to, and remixing) is written entirely in Korean.
- a world where video screencasts from an untrained educator are viewed by millions of learners, attract millions of dollars in funding, provoke thousands of educators to ‘flip their classrooms‘, and cause educators to critique and discuss the importance of pedagogy. And,
- a world where governments, corporations and educational institutions try to control all of these forces but most often, realize that their attempts are futile.
A wonderful blog post over at Open Thinking looking at the changes in the way education happens and the emergence of new educational spaces around the world. Change is happening so fast that we can barely keep up … documenting it (let alone studying it or using it) is a race against whatever unseen changes come next.
Things will move ahead. New tools will be created and new technologies will be used in ways that were never envisioned. Kids in impoverished Indian villages will have an online presence as powerful as MIT or the White House. The open exchange of ideas is no longer able to be controlled … how do teachers survive and adapt in this environment?
Change. It’s not going away …