Shifting Ed Paradigm

Will Richardson recently blogged about the "Learner as Network." This post captures the essence or the paradigm shift which Web 2.0 tools enable for the educational world. In reference to schools, he says "We are still about control, not sharing. We are still about distribution, not aggregation. We are still about closed content rather than open. We are static, not fluid. The idea that each of our students can play a relevant, meaningful, important role in the context of these networks is still so foreign to the people who run schools...it is only by practicing these skills, whether teachers or students, that they can truly be learned. " One of the commenters on this post, Judy Connell, says, "Spot on! In fact, there is a bit of urgency around all this - we are really into a digital renaissance! Students have told us that as educators we “just don’t understand” what their socially networked life is really like. We need to stop and ask students about this world. "