Richard Baranuik – Open Source Learning
This video showed textbooks of the future. Just like in the music industry where advancements have been made to the old 33 1/3 rds, so will advancements be made technologically to our textbooks. Baranuik brings the idea of Create-Rip-Mix-Burn, into the new age of textbooks. He thinks of it as a knowledge ecosystem where everyone can be an educational DJ. The basic idea is:
Create – super textbook online
Rip – into different languages
Mix – build your own customized course
Burn – for publication Less expensive on demand press Cut out middle man
What a fabulous idea – a textbook that is not outdated by the time it is published or a few years after it is purchased. Always current with the times, tailored made for individual students and your needs without spending a fortune.
My immediate fear was the idea that anyone could add to the content and how would this effect the authenticity of the information. Baranuik spoke about the Creative Commons license and the quality control feature of lenses.
This is definitely where we are going in education. I can not envision schools of the future without technology. Technology has certainly changed my process of teaching. Just in the mere fact of no more worksheets and less paper. I can have instant evaluation of all student performance, at my fingertip. I use my Promethean board everyday, all day! It is hard to make plans for a sub. I have to find a teacher manual! I am truly trying to do more student guided learning. I loved the quote he presented “I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, I understand.” Administration certainly has to see the need to have a staff trained in technology and the need for up to date technology. This will be an issue for the next couple of years as there are still teachers in the system who came through the ranks via “ole” school. As time goes on those entering the profession will have grown up with technology as part of their daily lives and it will be quite natural to incorporate into the classroom. Technology has changed the learning process because this is what the students know and how they learn.
Yvette, I watched this video also. I had to laugh when he started his presentation with a photo of a stack of record albums. I have a box of record albums that I take out every now and again and listen to. The sound is terrible and the record player is big and bulky and I have to stop to change records to listen to the next song, and can you imagine our students having to do this? In fact, I think I will have to bring all of it to school one day so that they can appreciate ITunes and Ipods and IPhones and digital recordings. I can't put my record player in my purse and take it with me so that I have my music with me at all times. My students, however, just have to stick their cell phones in their pockets to have hundreds of songs right at their fingertips. I can remember how excited I was when I got my 8 track player. At the time, that was the latest and greatest technology. Could we have imagined the technology of today? I don't think I could have.
ReplyDeleteMy classroom is equipped with a laptop computer for every student and I use them every day all day. I have textbooks, but I never use them. When I do need my students to have the information inside of them for something, which is rare, I have them use the textbook CDs. It is amazing the difference this makes. They don't think of the CDs as a textbook. If I asked them to take out their textbook, they would balk, but when I say put in the CD, they don't complain a bit.
I also love his saying “I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, I understand.”