“isn’t the undo button so cool!”-brandon (10 year old kid who screamed it out giddily at our after-school program while teaching other 10 years olds how to create a 2 player pong game in Scratch, a programming language for kids).
Smash some old ideas. In entertainment, marketing, business, design and education! Sounds simple. Just Slightly. Not sure what to make of the classroom these days. Of school, the process, the system. I wonder if it’s somewhat related to what Seth speaks of. In any way?
“I want to argue that we are living through and are right now at the key moment of a change in the way that ideas are created and spread and implemented.”
So, what does any of this have to do with teaching? I’m not sure because for the most part, we who participate in this thing called school are too over our heads with this what not and that what not to even think about the value of old ideas properly let alone entertain new ones. Regardless, we hope.
According to Godin, we started with the factory idea. Basically build a good factory line and churn, churn, churn. I think most school systems still follow this model. The Henry Ford model of Education. What better way to ensure cheap labor than by following the factory/industry model of education.
That idea was followed by the TV one. Blanket the airwaves with ads and you rule. Acceptable spamming. Hypnotize.
Godin believes that the new idea of making meaningful change is not by using power or money but by leading tribes. The idea of tribes. Strikingly reminds me of Clay Shirky’s talk…
“There is an awareness that the internet is not a decoration on contemporary society but a challenge to it…” -Clay Shirky
“We’re living through, in our historical generation, the largest increase in human expressive capability in history.” -Clay Shirky
Interesting questions on how different/similar is this media revolution that we’re all currently a living, acting part of compared to the previous media revolutions of the printing press, the telephone/telegraph, recorded media of all types and finally broadcast.
Godin speaks of ideas (factory, TV, tribes) and Shirky speaks of media revolutions. In the end, same good message. The digital revolution is not about hardware and software, it’s about social ideas and media revolutions and understanding their implication in time to affect meaningful change.
It’s been a while since I’ve listened to this talk by Sir Kenneth Robinson. Splendid. It seems appropriate for this time of transition for me.
I’m looking forward to getting back to teaching soon and doing what I love. And then, hopefully, soon recover my passion for being an advocate of multi-media literacies.
For now, I’ll be glad to just get back into the classroom.
