Education at a critical moment
Education at the end of this century is living a "crucial moment" as Jacques Maritain said at the end of the Second World War. The great problem, then as now, was to rebuild civilized and democratic life through education after the fall of great totalitarian empires. The two great defeated nations of yesteryear, Germany and Japan are today two world economic, scientific, technological and cultural powers. In contrast, a victorious nation such as the former Soviet Union has entered into a process of implosion and disintegration. The future of China is unknown, but if it moves towards an open society its contribution to culture could be immeasurable.
The only power in the modern world is in the new world, in America. Paradoxically the United States is today experiencing a severe educational crisis. A famous document published in 1983, A Nation at Risk, provides an implacable and desolate diagnosis that is still valid. Every day there is more poverty and more illiteracy in the world's most powerful nation. What then can be said of us Latin American countries! Figures are horrifying, even in Argentina which was always proud to be the richest and best educated country in the region. Thus the problem of education is a problem of civilization, transcending all frontiers and cultures.
The following reflections seek a way out of this labyrinth. We know that if we persist along the path that has already been trod we will remain for ever bogged down and will be placing the destiny of new generations at risk. We will restrict ourselves in this chapter to the contribution that could be made by technology already available to society, technology that will serve to improve our education. This new path will of necessity link up with all others.
THE EXTENDED SCHOOL
THE EXTENDED SCHOOL
Historically there has always been a very close relationship between the forms and contents of teaching and the social systems for the production of goods and services. During the industrial revolution schools were true "teaching factories" as education adopted the productive system model in all its aspects. The best schools were the largest, in the same way as businesses discovered the benefits of mass production. The incorporation of vast masses of workers, mostly illiterate to the productive system, required huge literacy programs. Architecturally the design of learning spaces did not substantially differ from that prevailing in plants, factories and warehouses. Externally they were very similar, and internally large, cold class-rooms were occupied by dozens of students sitting in rows in seeming replication of the assembly lines of the period. A teacher at the front of the class, like a foreman at the head of the workshop, uniforms or overalls for all, bells and sirens marking arrival, departure and work breaks. Work and study both took place on Saturdays. Summer vacations were originally designed so that children could help their farming parents with the harvest, and were then made to coincide with workers' paid vacations. The system was rigid and programs were inflexible, both in the factory and the school. Social and conceptual changes were slow, production was guaranteed for decades in both the educational and manufacturing environment. That world has changed.
The new millennium will see new productive guidelines. New companies operate with extraordinary flexibility and multiply their services worldwide. It is said that the new industry will require "brain labor" rather than "manual labor". We are entering the era of knowledge. Flourishing industries without smokestacks have arisen such as tourism, communications, information technology, biotechnology, health services, all moving huge volumes of financial and human resources. As a result, education will have to change. The demand for a profound change in the education of new generations is urgent, but the inertia of the educational system is great.
source :
http://www.byd.com.ar/de4www.htm
Historically there has always been a very close relationship between the forms and contents of teaching and the social systems for the production of goods and services. During the industrial revolution schools were true "teaching factories" as education adopted the productive system model in all its aspects. The best schools were the largest, in the same way as businesses discovered the benefits of mass production. The incorporation of vast masses of workers, mostly illiterate to the productive system, required huge literacy programs. Architecturally the design of learning spaces did not substantially differ from that prevailing in plants, factories and warehouses. Externally they were very similar, and internally large, cold class-rooms were occupied by dozens of students sitting in rows in seeming replication of the assembly lines of the period. A teacher at the front of the class, like a foreman at the head of the workshop, uniforms or overalls for all, bells and sirens marking arrival, departure and work breaks. Work and study both took place on Saturdays. Summer vacations were originally designed so that children could help their farming parents with the harvest, and were then made to coincide with workers' paid vacations. The system was rigid and programs were inflexible, both in the factory and the school. Social and conceptual changes were slow, production was guaranteed for decades in both the educational and manufacturing environment. That world has changed.
The new millennium will see new productive guidelines. New companies operate with extraordinary flexibility and multiply their services worldwide. It is said that the new industry will require "brain labor" rather than "manual labor". We are entering the era of knowledge. Flourishing industries without smokestacks have arisen such as tourism, communications, information technology, biotechnology, health services, all moving huge volumes of financial and human resources. As a result, education will have to change. The demand for a profound change in the education of new generations is urgent, but the inertia of the educational system is great.
source :
http://www.byd.com.ar/de4www.htm
Time for assimilation
Time for assimilation
Time is needed if habits are to be created. This time cannot be cut back unilaterally, and is not elastic, being linked to the mental demands made in assimilating novelty. This has been a main concern of psychologists such as Jean Piaget. The creation of new digital habits depends on the development of a new mind-set. Such a development cannot be improvised, nor can it be imposed from outside. It requires an effort of adaptation to the new features of a digital environment. We have mentioned the demands of time, for which there are clearly differentiated stages. The first hours serve only to learn about gaining access to the tools to be used (in general 10 hours are sufficient) followed by a learning stage (some 100 hours) and finally a lengthy practice stage. Only after 1000 hours can it be said that the user has incorporated (assimilated) a new digital habit in his or her study and working life. This almost logarithmic progression may be linked to the creation of new brain circuits in the distinct stages of assimilation of a cognitive habit. Much research still needs to be carried out on the matter but we believe it to be a case of internal constructive assimilation rather than a passive "impregnation" from an external environment. For this reason we must allow teachers time, encouraging them to assimilate these new uses for digital tools. Students will do so naturally as part of the lengthy period of learning provided by schooling.
One novelty of digital education is that students learn and use the technology much faster than their teachers. Any attempt to reverse this trend, forcing them to "tread water" is both hopeless and counterproductive. Often teachers repeat the same lesson year after year while their students have progressed ahead of the program because they can very easily gain access to more updated digital information. For teachers the main challenge of digital education lies in "teaching while learning", or to learn with and from the students themselves.
So far no-one appears to have created a predominantly digital school where as from the very first day of class the student has at his or her disposal all the elements necessary to create a digital habit without the need for other intermediaries. For example, no study has been made of the process of teaching handwriting to children "exclusively" using computers compared to those following traditional methods of learning. Lengthy experience with digital literacy leads us to consider that this method will be significantly more productive and quicker than traditional methods. However, the mere attempt to teach a small child to write pushing the keys of a computer rather than drawing letters with pencil and paper will be seen by many as a "forbidden experiment". However, we consider that this prohibition is simply an irrational taboo, impossible to justify. Some day in the not too distant future children will take to school a computer as light as a new pencil case for use in learning to write. Many however will have already learnt to do so at home, thanks to the computers of siblings and friends.
Such resistance to digital change is pertinacious. This can be seen from the fact that when we recommend the use of a portable computer in schools, and sometimes even in universities (as has happened to us in the case of disabled students, for example) it is necessary to overcome an enormous number of psychological and bureaucratic barriers that reveal the extent to which the computer is not welcomed but is barely tolerated by institutions. However, as we have said, such resistance will topple loudly, and digital education will become such a force that the education scene will be transformed for ever, to the astonishment of those who were unwilling or unable to make the "digital jump". In reality the wall that separates us from the digital world has already fallen, but few have dared cross over to the other side.
source :
http://www.byd.com.ar/de3www3.htm
Time is needed if habits are to be created. This time cannot be cut back unilaterally, and is not elastic, being linked to the mental demands made in assimilating novelty. This has been a main concern of psychologists such as Jean Piaget. The creation of new digital habits depends on the development of a new mind-set. Such a development cannot be improvised, nor can it be imposed from outside. It requires an effort of adaptation to the new features of a digital environment. We have mentioned the demands of time, for which there are clearly differentiated stages. The first hours serve only to learn about gaining access to the tools to be used (in general 10 hours are sufficient) followed by a learning stage (some 100 hours) and finally a lengthy practice stage. Only after 1000 hours can it be said that the user has incorporated (assimilated) a new digital habit in his or her study and working life. This almost logarithmic progression may be linked to the creation of new brain circuits in the distinct stages of assimilation of a cognitive habit. Much research still needs to be carried out on the matter but we believe it to be a case of internal constructive assimilation rather than a passive "impregnation" from an external environment. For this reason we must allow teachers time, encouraging them to assimilate these new uses for digital tools. Students will do so naturally as part of the lengthy period of learning provided by schooling.
One novelty of digital education is that students learn and use the technology much faster than their teachers. Any attempt to reverse this trend, forcing them to "tread water" is both hopeless and counterproductive. Often teachers repeat the same lesson year after year while their students have progressed ahead of the program because they can very easily gain access to more updated digital information. For teachers the main challenge of digital education lies in "teaching while learning", or to learn with and from the students themselves.
So far no-one appears to have created a predominantly digital school where as from the very first day of class the student has at his or her disposal all the elements necessary to create a digital habit without the need for other intermediaries. For example, no study has been made of the process of teaching handwriting to children "exclusively" using computers compared to those following traditional methods of learning. Lengthy experience with digital literacy leads us to consider that this method will be significantly more productive and quicker than traditional methods. However, the mere attempt to teach a small child to write pushing the keys of a computer rather than drawing letters with pencil and paper will be seen by many as a "forbidden experiment". However, we consider that this prohibition is simply an irrational taboo, impossible to justify. Some day in the not too distant future children will take to school a computer as light as a new pencil case for use in learning to write. Many however will have already learnt to do so at home, thanks to the computers of siblings and friends.
Such resistance to digital change is pertinacious. This can be seen from the fact that when we recommend the use of a portable computer in schools, and sometimes even in universities (as has happened to us in the case of disabled students, for example) it is necessary to overcome an enormous number of psychological and bureaucratic barriers that reveal the extent to which the computer is not welcomed but is barely tolerated by institutions. However, as we have said, such resistance will topple loudly, and digital education will become such a force that the education scene will be transformed for ever, to the astonishment of those who were unwilling or unable to make the "digital jump". In reality the wall that separates us from the digital world has already fallen, but few have dared cross over to the other side.
source :
http://www.byd.com.ar/de3www3.htm
The new digital culture
The new digital culture
In practice this road towards greater unity in human society requires a change in culture, beginning with a profound change in daily working habits. This is turn supposes special training which is not easy but is worth the effort as the advantages are obvious. In the first place there is a leveling of leisure and study time. The stress of change will be reduced. For example, going away or coming back from vacation will not imply such a sharp change in activity for students and teachers. The urgent need to "leave everything ready" before departing, and the mountain of tasks and pending decisions on return will all disappear. Vacations will be less of an abrupt divide, more natural and we would thus achieve greater personal harmony. This aspect will prevail in distance learning, which is never suspended for vacation. We will always find someone on line with us to learn from or to teach. However, the fact of being always connected, always on line, does not imply being tied to a job. Quite the contrary, it creates a sensation of great freedom which can be exercised at any time and place.
We consider that at present "disconnection" does not always mean rest. These new digital study habits will begin to grow in school and will continue to develop throughout life in the form of continuous education. The change will be profound and will have unsuspected consequences for education as a whole, for global society and for each one of us. True rest, absolutely necessary for the physical and spiritual balance of the individual, will be protected when work and study flow freely along digital networks. These rest times and work times will not be governed by a rigid bureaucratic schedule, but will be regulated by our own internal clock.
A basic piece of advice: it is necessary to practice the elimination of paper documents as far as possible. This will take time, as we have accumulated centuries of printed paper culture, mountains of public and private documents. We know that paper is expensive and deteriorates, and that books, newspapers and magazines cannot be kept for a long time. It is necessary to find more ecological, lasting and flexible methods for recording documents for consultation. The answer once again is digitization: the incorruptible bit. This has been perfectly understood by documentalists and librarians, but not by many educators.
Initially, hybrid situations will exist, such as the coexistence of printed and digital texts, as when an architect displays a design on paper that has been generated by computer, and which could be consulted directly on the screen. With time it is possible to acquire the habit of communicating without paper. Even fax paper turns out to be obsolete in the face of the modem/fax that enables messages to be sent and received directly from computers.
Once the network between students and professors has been established, progress is made at a different pace. One immediate benefit is the reduction in accumulated pending tasks. We begin to resolve problems without feeling overwhelmed, because work does not accumulate, it is processes in parts. We are always connected in the digital network, we are always on line, so that we form a permanently open system of communication. With one enormous advantage: digital messages do not interfere with rest or work. The addressee will consult them at the most suitable moment. But the reply can also be immediate, if necessary, when the two parties decide to meet on-line simultaneously. It is hard to transmit this digital dialog without experiencing it.
This book has been written in such a way, and was often worked on day and night. One of us is a night owl (preferring to work at night) while the other is an early bird (preferring the early morning). This electronic dialog was not just a telephone conversation between friends or an exchange between authors who share many ideas. It became a new format of virtual presence between distant communicators whose messages lasted and took on a life of their own. The book took shape gradually as the months went by. It never disappeared into a drawer, it was always present, on line, at our disposal in digital space. We have in total written hundreds of versions in the greatest tranquillity, without hurry. Possibly the result does not sufficiently reflect this persistent and detailed task, steadily knitted together. But by working together in this manner we have experienced the development of a project in "digital time"
In practice this road towards greater unity in human society requires a change in culture, beginning with a profound change in daily working habits. This is turn supposes special training which is not easy but is worth the effort as the advantages are obvious. In the first place there is a leveling of leisure and study time. The stress of change will be reduced. For example, going away or coming back from vacation will not imply such a sharp change in activity for students and teachers. The urgent need to "leave everything ready" before departing, and the mountain of tasks and pending decisions on return will all disappear. Vacations will be less of an abrupt divide, more natural and we would thus achieve greater personal harmony. This aspect will prevail in distance learning, which is never suspended for vacation. We will always find someone on line with us to learn from or to teach. However, the fact of being always connected, always on line, does not imply being tied to a job. Quite the contrary, it creates a sensation of great freedom which can be exercised at any time and place.
We consider that at present "disconnection" does not always mean rest. These new digital study habits will begin to grow in school and will continue to develop throughout life in the form of continuous education. The change will be profound and will have unsuspected consequences for education as a whole, for global society and for each one of us. True rest, absolutely necessary for the physical and spiritual balance of the individual, will be protected when work and study flow freely along digital networks. These rest times and work times will not be governed by a rigid bureaucratic schedule, but will be regulated by our own internal clock.
A basic piece of advice: it is necessary to practice the elimination of paper documents as far as possible. This will take time, as we have accumulated centuries of printed paper culture, mountains of public and private documents. We know that paper is expensive and deteriorates, and that books, newspapers and magazines cannot be kept for a long time. It is necessary to find more ecological, lasting and flexible methods for recording documents for consultation. The answer once again is digitization: the incorruptible bit. This has been perfectly understood by documentalists and librarians, but not by many educators.
Initially, hybrid situations will exist, such as the coexistence of printed and digital texts, as when an architect displays a design on paper that has been generated by computer, and which could be consulted directly on the screen. With time it is possible to acquire the habit of communicating without paper. Even fax paper turns out to be obsolete in the face of the modem/fax that enables messages to be sent and received directly from computers.
Once the network between students and professors has been established, progress is made at a different pace. One immediate benefit is the reduction in accumulated pending tasks. We begin to resolve problems without feeling overwhelmed, because work does not accumulate, it is processes in parts. We are always connected in the digital network, we are always on line, so that we form a permanently open system of communication. With one enormous advantage: digital messages do not interfere with rest or work. The addressee will consult them at the most suitable moment. But the reply can also be immediate, if necessary, when the two parties decide to meet on-line simultaneously. It is hard to transmit this digital dialog without experiencing it.
This book has been written in such a way, and was often worked on day and night. One of us is a night owl (preferring to work at night) while the other is an early bird (preferring the early morning). This electronic dialog was not just a telephone conversation between friends or an exchange between authors who share many ideas. It became a new format of virtual presence between distant communicators whose messages lasted and took on a life of their own. The book took shape gradually as the months went by. It never disappeared into a drawer, it was always present, on line, at our disposal in digital space. We have in total written hundreds of versions in the greatest tranquillity, without hurry. Possibly the result does not sufficiently reflect this persistent and detailed task, steadily knitted together. But by working together in this manner we have experienced the development of a project in "digital time"
THE DIGITAL HABIT
THE DIGITAL HABIT
Ancient philosophers considered that habit was "second nature", and that the nature of mankind is enriched (or impoverished) improved (or worsened) by habit. Habits are both good and bad. This conception, linked to the notion of "virtue", had in its time significant practical consequences on customs and morality, education and even politics. Today the concept of habit has moved to a secondary plane in both theory and practice, in particular among educators, although it merits greater attention.
In effect it is possible to state that the entire process of education is based on the creation of "new habits". Contemporary sciences have recently come to the rescue of this almost forgotten but very necessary notion. Cognitive sciences, etology, neurosciences all investigate the acquisition of habits, their preservation and loss. From innate, genetically programmed conduct through to the freest creations of the human spirit, including elemental reflexes and the neuro-physiological mechanisms of "habituation" and adaptation, human learning is based on the unceasing building of new habits. Distinguished American psychologist and educator Jerome Bruner has affirmed that "knowledge only becomes useful when it is turned into habit".
In some cases, such as that which concerns us here, habit is linked to the massive flood of new technology affecting human society. Cars, telephones, radio and television have created new habits all over the world. Information technology has drastically modified social behavior in many fields as the century comes to an end. Curiously only education seems immune to this transformation. No "digital habit" of an educational nature has yet been established that could compete with those in other non-educational areas, such as TV zapping and video games.
How is such a digital habit to be formed? In the first place, familiarity with computers and communications in learning and teaching is still limited. The typical organization of a school that (incorrectly) calls itself computerized consists of a separate world where "computer classes " are given in set timetables on certain days. Such an exercise does not influence the intimate nature of education. If we were to remove the blackboard from a classroom, lessons could not continue to be given. Were we to remove the computers however, lessons would be given as normal (although school enrollment might suffer). Computers have still not been fully integrated into modern education. They still need to be domesticated. In many cases they are used as an instrument imposed by social convention or program demands. Computers have not yet managed to renovate old educational habits and teaching methods dating from the last century such as classroom learning, master classes and examinations.
One practical method for generating digital habits is for there to be continued, unrestricted, exposure to a computerized environment. In the same way that the best method for learning a language is to live in a community where the language is spoken, acquiring digital language requires living in a digital habitat. Generally speaking few teachers willingly attend computer classes. When they do attend they are subjected to the same constraints as their students: restricted timetables and limited availability of equipment. It is absolutely essential to break this rigid mold and open up new technology to both teachers and student alike. To do so there is no better way than to create an environment where teachers are in a position to train themselves, freely acquiring new digital habits in school or at home. It is necessary to create "the missing classroom" for them, with all necessary comforts and the best equipment, with no timetable restrictions. Our experience at the Colegio San MartÃn de Tours school for girls in Buenos Aires has been extremely encouraging. When we began our consultancy we discovered a situation where information technology was taught in a traditional manner by a small group of experts in a closed classroom. We proposed opening up the game and offering computer courses to all staff wishing to acquire such skills. Little by little the situation changed, so that after two years the school has managed to incorporate all its teachers and directors to the world of digital technology. The school now has more than one hundred teachers trained in communications and information technology compared to the handful of computer experts with which it began. The training of adults was not easy, as not all were convinced of the need for it, but it provoked a profound revolution in the school itself. Gone were locked classrooms; network computers began to populate the open spaces and corridors of the entire institution. Administrators, teachers and students were all provided total freedom to work with the best information technology tools.
This experience indicates that instead of restricting the use of the few machines in the computer room to "computer class hours" it is essential to offer the entire school community freedom of access to machines at all times and everywhere. This in turn means that computers should be connected to a network within the institution, ceasing to be "personal" computers and instead becoming inter-personal computers, distributed throughout the school, in corridors, classrooms, libraries and patios. Digital habits are quickly learnt when users can sit down at any machine anywhere in the school, appropriating the machine for their own use. Such universal availability of equipment is the prime property of becoming digital. At the school all the computers are linked to each other and to oneself at all times, anywhere; they are at one's disposal and not the other way around, as happens in most schools.
However, familiarity is not limited to the school environment, but extends into the home. The "extended school" concept is no more than the prolonging of education into the home and society. Unfortunately educators are not genuine leaders of technological change, and most only passively follow market and fashion flows; many have not yet acquired or can even recognize digital habits in their personal lives. Because of this in the best of cases they support the mistaken idea that only an increased number of computers in schools will lead to progress in education. Not enough awareness exists of the formidable resource that exists in homes. A quick survey would however be sufficient to confirm the wealth of information technology installed in homes compared to the chronic scarcity in schools.
We are concerned to verify that such an enormous wealth of human talent and information technology equipment is wasted to education simply because the home is not digitally linked to the school. A profound change in connectivity must be encouraged. Firstly, the homes of teachers and students should form a network with the school if we wish to establish a digital habit in line with modern globalization. In the home the family computer is an instrument that belongs equally to children and adults. Connectivity has already been developed with the home use of Internet, the prodigious growth of which is a subject in itself. However, schools remain unconnected to homes. This is a matter that must still be dealt with. We must create a truly extended school, as this digital connection between home and school will be the backbone of the new education.
However, if familiarity with computers is a necessary condition for establishing a digital habit, we recognize that this alone is not sufficient. Computer use must have a personal justification for the user. Often computers are installed but no-one uses them regularly or to full advantage. One infallible test is to verify if the computer is kept on at the executive's desk or in the teachers' room. Another check is to calculate the number of printed documents in an educational establishment. As long as the computer is used only as a typewriter the institution will be inundated with paper, memos, work to be corrected, lists, notices, etc. But the decisive test is in the classroom. The ideal of many supposedly computer-literate teachers is to be able to use a computer at the front of the class to control the computer activities of each of the students at their desks. It is very difficult to break away from this vertical approach, the radiation of knowledge from a single source to the more or less dumb receivers of information.
Our educational proposal on the other hand is based on replacing this centralized model, placing maximum confidence in intelligence distributed horizontally, between peers. The teacher will learn to require practical work digitally over the network, daily on-line evaluation of all tasks will replace the final exam, and everyone will be linked, with the greatest possible freedom to consult, ask, make mistakes and create. In schools where this digital practice has begun favorable changes have followed at dizzying speed. Our own experience bears witness to this.
Ancient philosophers considered that habit was "second nature", and that the nature of mankind is enriched (or impoverished) improved (or worsened) by habit. Habits are both good and bad. This conception, linked to the notion of "virtue", had in its time significant practical consequences on customs and morality, education and even politics. Today the concept of habit has moved to a secondary plane in both theory and practice, in particular among educators, although it merits greater attention.
In effect it is possible to state that the entire process of education is based on the creation of "new habits". Contemporary sciences have recently come to the rescue of this almost forgotten but very necessary notion. Cognitive sciences, etology, neurosciences all investigate the acquisition of habits, their preservation and loss. From innate, genetically programmed conduct through to the freest creations of the human spirit, including elemental reflexes and the neuro-physiological mechanisms of "habituation" and adaptation, human learning is based on the unceasing building of new habits. Distinguished American psychologist and educator Jerome Bruner has affirmed that "knowledge only becomes useful when it is turned into habit".
In some cases, such as that which concerns us here, habit is linked to the massive flood of new technology affecting human society. Cars, telephones, radio and television have created new habits all over the world. Information technology has drastically modified social behavior in many fields as the century comes to an end. Curiously only education seems immune to this transformation. No "digital habit" of an educational nature has yet been established that could compete with those in other non-educational areas, such as TV zapping and video games.
How is such a digital habit to be formed? In the first place, familiarity with computers and communications in learning and teaching is still limited. The typical organization of a school that (incorrectly) calls itself computerized consists of a separate world where "computer classes " are given in set timetables on certain days. Such an exercise does not influence the intimate nature of education. If we were to remove the blackboard from a classroom, lessons could not continue to be given. Were we to remove the computers however, lessons would be given as normal (although school enrollment might suffer). Computers have still not been fully integrated into modern education. They still need to be domesticated. In many cases they are used as an instrument imposed by social convention or program demands. Computers have not yet managed to renovate old educational habits and teaching methods dating from the last century such as classroom learning, master classes and examinations.
One practical method for generating digital habits is for there to be continued, unrestricted, exposure to a computerized environment. In the same way that the best method for learning a language is to live in a community where the language is spoken, acquiring digital language requires living in a digital habitat. Generally speaking few teachers willingly attend computer classes. When they do attend they are subjected to the same constraints as their students: restricted timetables and limited availability of equipment. It is absolutely essential to break this rigid mold and open up new technology to both teachers and student alike. To do so there is no better way than to create an environment where teachers are in a position to train themselves, freely acquiring new digital habits in school or at home. It is necessary to create "the missing classroom" for them, with all necessary comforts and the best equipment, with no timetable restrictions. Our experience at the Colegio San MartÃn de Tours school for girls in Buenos Aires has been extremely encouraging. When we began our consultancy we discovered a situation where information technology was taught in a traditional manner by a small group of experts in a closed classroom. We proposed opening up the game and offering computer courses to all staff wishing to acquire such skills. Little by little the situation changed, so that after two years the school has managed to incorporate all its teachers and directors to the world of digital technology. The school now has more than one hundred teachers trained in communications and information technology compared to the handful of computer experts with which it began. The training of adults was not easy, as not all were convinced of the need for it, but it provoked a profound revolution in the school itself. Gone were locked classrooms; network computers began to populate the open spaces and corridors of the entire institution. Administrators, teachers and students were all provided total freedom to work with the best information technology tools.
This experience indicates that instead of restricting the use of the few machines in the computer room to "computer class hours" it is essential to offer the entire school community freedom of access to machines at all times and everywhere. This in turn means that computers should be connected to a network within the institution, ceasing to be "personal" computers and instead becoming inter-personal computers, distributed throughout the school, in corridors, classrooms, libraries and patios. Digital habits are quickly learnt when users can sit down at any machine anywhere in the school, appropriating the machine for their own use. Such universal availability of equipment is the prime property of becoming digital. At the school all the computers are linked to each other and to oneself at all times, anywhere; they are at one's disposal and not the other way around, as happens in most schools.
However, familiarity is not limited to the school environment, but extends into the home. The "extended school" concept is no more than the prolonging of education into the home and society. Unfortunately educators are not genuine leaders of technological change, and most only passively follow market and fashion flows; many have not yet acquired or can even recognize digital habits in their personal lives. Because of this in the best of cases they support the mistaken idea that only an increased number of computers in schools will lead to progress in education. Not enough awareness exists of the formidable resource that exists in homes. A quick survey would however be sufficient to confirm the wealth of information technology installed in homes compared to the chronic scarcity in schools.
We are concerned to verify that such an enormous wealth of human talent and information technology equipment is wasted to education simply because the home is not digitally linked to the school. A profound change in connectivity must be encouraged. Firstly, the homes of teachers and students should form a network with the school if we wish to establish a digital habit in line with modern globalization. In the home the family computer is an instrument that belongs equally to children and adults. Connectivity has already been developed with the home use of Internet, the prodigious growth of which is a subject in itself. However, schools remain unconnected to homes. This is a matter that must still be dealt with. We must create a truly extended school, as this digital connection between home and school will be the backbone of the new education.
However, if familiarity with computers is a necessary condition for establishing a digital habit, we recognize that this alone is not sufficient. Computer use must have a personal justification for the user. Often computers are installed but no-one uses them regularly or to full advantage. One infallible test is to verify if the computer is kept on at the executive's desk or in the teachers' room. Another check is to calculate the number of printed documents in an educational establishment. As long as the computer is used only as a typewriter the institution will be inundated with paper, memos, work to be corrected, lists, notices, etc. But the decisive test is in the classroom. The ideal of many supposedly computer-literate teachers is to be able to use a computer at the front of the class to control the computer activities of each of the students at their desks. It is very difficult to break away from this vertical approach, the radiation of knowledge from a single source to the more or less dumb receivers of information.
Our educational proposal on the other hand is based on replacing this centralized model, placing maximum confidence in intelligence distributed horizontally, between peers. The teacher will learn to require practical work digitally over the network, daily on-line evaluation of all tasks will replace the final exam, and everyone will be linked, with the greatest possible freedom to consult, ask, make mistakes and create. In schools where this digital practice has begun favorable changes have followed at dizzying speed. Our own experience bears witness to this.
Education and the state
Education and the state
In this transition towards a globalization of education the state should change its focus. It is urgently necessary to grant the greatest possible freedom to national educational systems so that they can find their own way forward, stimulating international competition wherever possible. Sooner or later countries will begin to "buy and sell" education. This already happens indirectly through the mass media, but the interchange will be more genuine and effective in the case of the services without frontiers provided by digital education. These new international educational services are set to flourish in a most spectacular manner. Countries that refuse to open their frontiers to this new exchange of ideas and knowledge will inexorably fall behind. The state should guarantee and encourage this right of their citizens to travel unhindered through the new territories of the digital world.
Thus with the passage of time, in the same way that open television filters into the most totalitarian of states, the most progressive education will penetrate all the regions of the globe, following the paths of telecommunications, tourism and transport, among others. Timetables and spatial restrictions will diminish, and each person or group will be able to opt for the courses that are most suitable to them. The freedom to learn and the freedom to teach must be preserved in their entirety, as guaranteed but not always as observed in practice by the constitutions of modern nations.
This will lead to the progressive disappearance of "captive" territories within the educational map. Students and their families will seek teachers and professors from the entire world network of education and will select those that best meet their demands and needs (and vice-versa?). Programs that exist in a certain region will be simply ignored if they do not satisfy family demands and the student's intellectual appetite. No one will be able to stop this from happening. Many of those who currently work to create educational programs at municipal, provincial or international level believing they can control the contents of learning down to the smallest detail will be overrun by events in a global education.
There will be no room in the globalized world for a "single mind" in education, for any program directed by ministries, for curricula imposed by a given educational doctrine. The new society of knowledge will overcome all these barriers, leading to a society that will be digital, global and free. There are reasons to believe that we are not proposing a utopia. Preparation will be needed. Few are those who are aware that the Berlin wall of education, which keeps states and individuals isolated, has already fallen
In this transition towards a globalization of education the state should change its focus. It is urgently necessary to grant the greatest possible freedom to national educational systems so that they can find their own way forward, stimulating international competition wherever possible. Sooner or later countries will begin to "buy and sell" education. This already happens indirectly through the mass media, but the interchange will be more genuine and effective in the case of the services without frontiers provided by digital education. These new international educational services are set to flourish in a most spectacular manner. Countries that refuse to open their frontiers to this new exchange of ideas and knowledge will inexorably fall behind. The state should guarantee and encourage this right of their citizens to travel unhindered through the new territories of the digital world.
Thus with the passage of time, in the same way that open television filters into the most totalitarian of states, the most progressive education will penetrate all the regions of the globe, following the paths of telecommunications, tourism and transport, among others. Timetables and spatial restrictions will diminish, and each person or group will be able to opt for the courses that are most suitable to them. The freedom to learn and the freedom to teach must be preserved in their entirety, as guaranteed but not always as observed in practice by the constitutions of modern nations.
This will lead to the progressive disappearance of "captive" territories within the educational map. Students and their families will seek teachers and professors from the entire world network of education and will select those that best meet their demands and needs (and vice-versa?). Programs that exist in a certain region will be simply ignored if they do not satisfy family demands and the student's intellectual appetite. No one will be able to stop this from happening. Many of those who currently work to create educational programs at municipal, provincial or international level believing they can control the contents of learning down to the smallest detail will be overrun by events in a global education.
There will be no room in the globalized world for a "single mind" in education, for any program directed by ministries, for curricula imposed by a given educational doctrine. The new society of knowledge will overcome all these barriers, leading to a society that will be digital, global and free. There are reasons to believe that we are not proposing a utopia. Preparation will be needed. Few are those who are aware that the Berlin wall of education, which keeps states and individuals isolated, has already fallen
Education and business
Education and business
The currently fashionable "efficient" view that education should be designed mainly with a view to production is also seriously limited. We do not share this view as often presented, considering that education goes much further than the mere acquiring of a skill or specific know-how.
Education is the acquiring of a "second nature", a habit of mind as classical teachers would have it, impregnating all conduct and all knowledge. The habit of learning is the sign of a civilized human being. However, we must recognize that global changes in the last decade have been so prodigious that formal education has not yet been able to adequately cope with them.
We are to enter the third millennium with new educational habits, both good and bad. This can be seen from the incomprehensible exclusion of education from the world's three activities of greatest growth, the "three Ts" of telecommunications, tourism and transport. Schools continue to consider telecommunications as an expense and not as an essential investment. Distance learning and classroom education continue to have a confrontational relationship rather than complementing each other. Valuable educational initiatives in tourism are very limited, in general being restricted to end-of term school trips and the like, without creating an environment suitable for in situ education outside school walls. However, no-one would dispute that the best way to learn a language is to live in the country where it is spoken. New construction techniques enable the building of mobile schools, workshops and laboratories, with more open and flexible functional structures, well equipped and transportable rather that fixed and enclosed between brick walls. Perhaps we will one day witness a new-style "educational camp", fully equipped and connected to the network.
We recognize that the traditional educational system is often cut off from the rest of society, which in turn paradoxically frequently considers it as a hindrance, an obstacle to development. As we have said, educational establishments as such are wary of globalization. However, those establishments that do not open up to the real world, that do not radically adapt their teaching methods to the coming generations will be eliminated by society itself, as happens with obsolete industries and services. Education should once and for all abandon the isolationism in which it has become entrenched, renouncing anachronistic privileges and properly integrating into an open society.
We believe business will have a growing role to play in this process of globalization in education. Successful businesses know how to quickly adapt to changes in markets, whereas education has not yet learnt to do so, being slow to react to change. The best companies are well aware of their cost-benefit ratio and do the best they can to improve their products, seeking total quality, making adjustments as they go, without waiting for a final exam to reject a product. In education these lean production techniques are still foreign, although some pioneers have begun to apply them. Nor is malpractice penalized, as it is in medicine or engineering. Those in charge are not accustomed to giving satisfactory account of the strictly educational results obtained from the massive resources allocated to the education (often excessively long) that is provided to students, in the manner of companies reporting to their shareholders. The external evaluations and educational audits that have begun to be applied in certain places should therefore be welcomed.
In addition, business practices can be stimulated in school, as is done with great success in the case of commercial initiatives led by student groups (such as Junior Achievement). In turn, businesses themselves must become transformed into permanent centers of education. Happily, more and more companies are becoming involved in the education of their personnel. At present this process is known as "training", to distinguish it from formal education, but it is soon clear that the educational process is in fact the same. In effect, many companies have links to universities, some have links with high schools and technical institutes, (but very few have any form of connection with the primary levels). Why therefore is the world of business still so dissociated from the world of education? It should be possible for them to interact and complement each other more effectively. Is there in fact any difference between learning and working? Can one learn without working, or work without learning?
source :
http://www.byd.com.ar/de2www1.htm
The currently fashionable "efficient" view that education should be designed mainly with a view to production is also seriously limited. We do not share this view as often presented, considering that education goes much further than the mere acquiring of a skill or specific know-how.
Education is the acquiring of a "second nature", a habit of mind as classical teachers would have it, impregnating all conduct and all knowledge. The habit of learning is the sign of a civilized human being. However, we must recognize that global changes in the last decade have been so prodigious that formal education has not yet been able to adequately cope with them.
We are to enter the third millennium with new educational habits, both good and bad. This can be seen from the incomprehensible exclusion of education from the world's three activities of greatest growth, the "three Ts" of telecommunications, tourism and transport. Schools continue to consider telecommunications as an expense and not as an essential investment. Distance learning and classroom education continue to have a confrontational relationship rather than complementing each other. Valuable educational initiatives in tourism are very limited, in general being restricted to end-of term school trips and the like, without creating an environment suitable for in situ education outside school walls. However, no-one would dispute that the best way to learn a language is to live in the country where it is spoken. New construction techniques enable the building of mobile schools, workshops and laboratories, with more open and flexible functional structures, well equipped and transportable rather that fixed and enclosed between brick walls. Perhaps we will one day witness a new-style "educational camp", fully equipped and connected to the network.
We recognize that the traditional educational system is often cut off from the rest of society, which in turn paradoxically frequently considers it as a hindrance, an obstacle to development. As we have said, educational establishments as such are wary of globalization. However, those establishments that do not open up to the real world, that do not radically adapt their teaching methods to the coming generations will be eliminated by society itself, as happens with obsolete industries and services. Education should once and for all abandon the isolationism in which it has become entrenched, renouncing anachronistic privileges and properly integrating into an open society.
We believe business will have a growing role to play in this process of globalization in education. Successful businesses know how to quickly adapt to changes in markets, whereas education has not yet learnt to do so, being slow to react to change. The best companies are well aware of their cost-benefit ratio and do the best they can to improve their products, seeking total quality, making adjustments as they go, without waiting for a final exam to reject a product. In education these lean production techniques are still foreign, although some pioneers have begun to apply them. Nor is malpractice penalized, as it is in medicine or engineering. Those in charge are not accustomed to giving satisfactory account of the strictly educational results obtained from the massive resources allocated to the education (often excessively long) that is provided to students, in the manner of companies reporting to their shareholders. The external evaluations and educational audits that have begun to be applied in certain places should therefore be welcomed.
In addition, business practices can be stimulated in school, as is done with great success in the case of commercial initiatives led by student groups (such as Junior Achievement). In turn, businesses themselves must become transformed into permanent centers of education. Happily, more and more companies are becoming involved in the education of their personnel. At present this process is known as "training", to distinguish it from formal education, but it is soon clear that the educational process is in fact the same. In effect, many companies have links to universities, some have links with high schools and technical institutes, (but very few have any form of connection with the primary levels). Why therefore is the world of business still so dissociated from the world of education? It should be possible for them to interact and complement each other more effectively. Is there in fact any difference between learning and working? Can one learn without working, or work without learning?
source :
http://www.byd.com.ar/de2www1.htm
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