Thursday, May 10, 2012

2013 EDU: Can place-locked schools educate for the future?

The kids are not wasting time on the internet.
They are learning for the future by living in the future.
-
Place-locked school
Why is it empty?
-
Place-locked school:  A school (university, college, junior college, technical school, or other instructional unit)  that has service area and instructional content limited by geographical location. 
-
If you go to a place-locked university do you get enough experience to live with the world-wide  internet future? 

-
What?  We've always taught school by bringing the students to the building.   
  • That way we can watch 'em.  
  • Make sure they are studying.  
  • Make sure they are not working together-- that would be cheating.  
  • Make sure they remember the material and don't look it up in a book.
Drastic claim that the learners won't find in "the material."  
Some day, you won't see these giant colleges with the costly buildings. You'll just get on your computer and the college will come to you.
Arkansas State University knows this, which is why someone there made an ASU sim on SL. 
Big changes.  Probably most universities have courses about that.  Students come in an listen to a 50-minute lecture about how people will do most of the "intellectual"  work online.  

They will come out of the course with a cultivated ability to talk about that topic.  That old-fashioned lecture will do little to prepare them to live, or earn a living, in the future.
-
Other students will stay at home.  Take courses on line.  Learn German by visiting Virtual Germany.  Earn language credit by conversing in German with their friends in Berlin.  And when the conversation is about Berlin, the students will walk around in virtual Berlin, chat in German with docents there, and practice looking up places, historical background, and current appearance by using the search resources of the internet.   
-
Students will study chemistry by visiting a world-class living exposition of chemistry.  They will study molecules by flying through them.  They will chat with experts in chemistry from around the world.  They will build their own molecules and see how they work.  
-
Students of business will create and run their own businesses in virtual worlds.  Instead of reading about the mistakes people make in business, the students will learn from their own mistakes--mistakes that are harmless in a virtual world.  
-
These latter students may not learn to talk about the future.  They won't need to.  They will be living in it.  
  • Online
  • Wireless.  
  • Knowledge resources at the touch of the search button.   
  • World-wide contact network before they leave high school
  • Remote conferencing starts in the sixth grade
  • Personal online library of resources from whatever they studied
  • Remote collaboration starts in the eighth grade

Literacy in a Networked SocietyRhonda Lowry, Grace McDunnough 

-Educators have been asking the wrong question about online learning:
Not
"Does online learning produce adequate preparation by current standards."
But
"Does place-locked learning produce adequate preparation by future standards."

-
Video-Machinima
      

*****
  • What do we do in Virtual Worlds? 
  • Search on page with Google Chrome: Ctrl+f, search bar upper right 
  • Google search this blog, column on right
  • or put site:virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com at the end of the search terms
  • Annotated screen shots made with Jing
  • Creative Commons License, attribution only.
  • Second LifeLindenSLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc.
  • This blog is not affiliated with Second Life or anything else.  
  • Ads are  from Google
-
  

2 comments:

  1. This post is really fascinating and revolutionary. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ESL Language Schools-During the summer vacations the school students get time to enjoy in their own way. Some therefore plans to visit new cities some choose to join hobby classes, summer camps or singing and dancing courses. For those who enjoy traveling can think of a quick trip in Switzerland. Switzerland is known for its natural beauty and especially the Alps. At the banks of the Swiss lakes ESL Language School has specially arranged the camps in the area from where the students can enjoy both the natural beauty and the language courses simultaneously.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.