Open Thinking Conference- George Siemens
I found George Siemens presentation last night on ustream fascinating. It was interesting enough having had the opportunity to see something happening live over the net let alone hearing about an information revolution, “an age of resonance.” Our world today is changing fast and I too admit that there is a desire in me to understand and connect with the technological world. George mentioned the difference between complicated and complex. Complicated we know – complex we don’t know, we just sense. Our world is no longer complicated but complex. Technology is continually being upgraded while new things are being invented. Keeping up with all of this is very overwhelming yet if we think about our future classrooms it is also very exciting!
I don’t recall ever having the opportunity to connect with someone from the other side of the world when I was in grade school. It was hard enough connecting with my friend from across the street at times. Today our students can engage in conversation with students from around the world, they can even learn about another culture almost first hand through the net. I often worry that the technological world is going to increase barriers between people because there is this fear that people are going to stop communicating among themselves and just live in this so called cyber world. Siemens presentation however allowed me to see the role of technology in a different light. The use of technology in our classrooms can help us to teach our students to be creative thinkers. It can also help to break down barriers among peoples if we are informed and aware of the many possibilities and uses of net.
It may be true that we as teachers may someday become, as George Siemens said, network administrators. Our schools do often teach in a single direction manner, meaning we often only teach what needs to be taught and in a way that maybe only suits one type of learner. As future teachers we need to be open to change, big change. Our schools have not changed much over the years and it seems fitting with the times that teachers and schools today take on a challenge. A challenge to face this fast paced technological world and challenge our students to become more aware of their world and their future.
