Holistic and Integral Education

21st C Literacies: Same only Different?

I've been reading about the use of the term "21st century literacies" - is the term meaningful, accurate, useful... ? This is an important conversation - perhaps more for the process and educational journey than for a definitive outcome.

But for the most part the dialogue appears to focus on 'new media literacies' and the changing (21st century?) contexts of information/communication.

What I would like to see in this dialogue is a discussion of some other literacies - social and emotional literacy, environmental literacy, spiritual literacy... Literacies that are also essential to function, participate fully and be healthy and successful in the 21st century.

Are these literacies? That depends on how one defines a literacy. If a literacy is defined as the ability to

• READ - access and interpret a 'language'
• MAKE MEANING - critically reflect on the value and meaning of the information communicated
• WRITE - successfully and meaningfully communicate or take action
  

in order to function effectively, participate fully and prosper in the world then I think we can - and should - talk about more than the basic '3R' literacies of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Social and emotional literacy? Communicating about relationships and feelings - the so-called '4th R' - relationships. The ability to access and interpret social and emotional language - eg body language, personal feelings - perhaps the primary language of intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence.

Environmental Literacy? The ability to access and read the natural world - an essential indigenous literacy and - in the light of current global challenges involving natural systems - an essential 21st century literacy. Is this the primary language of naturalistic intelligence - leading at higher levels to the ability to commune with nature?

Spiritual Literacy? The ability to access and read the deep and sacred in everyday life - an essential literacy for finding deeper place and purpose in the universe. Is this the primary language for a spiritual or existential intelligence - and an important aspect of what it means to be a healthy whole human being?

Some argue that these literacies are not new - we could just as easily label them 2oth century literacies. And this may be more accurate given that we could also argue that fundamental educational change has largely skipped the 20th century :-)

Are there new 21st century literacies? Or are we talking about the same literacies in a different 21st century context? These are worthwhile conversations but we should also include the possibility of more than just 'multimedia' or 'new media' literacies.

What other symbols/meanings/languages do we need to be able to read and understand and communicate in the 21st century?
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Labels: 21stCentury, communication, literacies, spirituality, systems, worldviews

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:28 AM 0 comments

Declaration of Educational Goals: ICTs

MCEETYA are seeking input on the new National Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians for the next decade. See previous post.

• maximising the use of the latest technologies in teacher professional learning (d)
• integrating key multidisciplinary perspectives into the curriculum which includes ICT (e)
• using new technology to minimize red tape and make information easily accessible to the public (g)

To some this appears odd given the focus in the preamble, the current Digital Education Revolution national agenda and the level of detail in the DER strategic planning documents.

Perhaps the draft declaration needs to include something about using ICTs to achieve each goal - and some/many of the 'commitment to actions' - or is that assumed? Can we assume anything if we are talking about the need for "quantum leaps" in effectiveness?

Should the document include something about using ICTs to

• enable personalised learning?
• create safe and developmentally appropriate spaces for blended learning, communities of inquiry and digital folios?
• facilitate assessment of, for and as learning?
• bridge formal and informal learning - including computer game and special interest 'affinity spaces'?

Or perhaps given the ongoing rapid rate of change in ICTs to 2020 we need to rethink our approach in this area?

How can we be ready for powerful mobile computing, complex virtual worlds, sophisticated games AI, highly interactive media, ubiquitous geo-tagging, and many more ... as they deliver new affordances in education? Particularly when they are likely to be delivered directly to most (but not all) learners? And particularly when learners won't necessarily 'see' either the new ICT or the new affordances?

How can curriculum, learning, teaching and assessment be much more responsive to this rapid change? How can we keep the focus on learning, teaching and assessment without being distracted by shiny gadgets with short lives? How can we reduce the professional learning burden on teachers?

What other questions should we be asking and which assumptions should we be questioning?

Perhaps this is where we need a 'commitment to action'.

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Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum, ICT tools, literacies

posted by Roger Stack @ 8:04 AM 1 comments

Declaration of Educational Goals: Metaphors

MCEETYA are seeking input on the new National Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians for the next decade. See previous post.

The draft document calls for the development in Australia of "world-class curriculum and assessment". Although I understand the intent I question the metaphor and therefore the possible underlying assumptions.

While previous declarations have been about 'schooling' the current document moves to 'education'. This is a welcome and significant shift away from 19th century metaphors and thinking that were designed to support industrialisation.

But which school of thought does 'world-class' sit in? We need to be careful that 19th century metaphors are not being simply re-badged leaving unquestioned assumptions to drive thinking.

For example, when the document refers to the need for "quality teachers" it also talks about developing the right people to be effective instructors to deliver the best possible instruction! Aren't we committed to personalised learning for all young Australians?

The document says teachers should have "targeted professional development... to enhance teaching and learning." Shouldn't they be engaged with "personalised professional learning... to enhance learning, teaching and assessment" ?

Laying solid foundations is another metaphor that needs questioning... The notion of providing foundations for later learning appears frequently in the document. Combined with the need for essential literacy and numeracy (also frequently cited) and the need to meet national standards this has the potential to alienate many of the learners we are attempting to engage.

Some learners spend years - even decades - in dark educational foundations...

We understand the brain/mind and learning a little better now. Laying foundations, building learning structures, sequential processes and other 19th C metaphors are not always the most appropriate...

We also need to question our curriculum metaphors. The document talks about a "comprehensive curriculum that details the knowledge, skills and values to be achieved." Is this 'curriculum as content' where "specified work needs to be covered" ? Or are we talking about more dynamic curriculum frameworks that remains current in times of rapid change?

While the document has much to offer it still appears to be caught between the 19th and 21st centuries - neither in one nor the other...

But then so are we :-)

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Labels: 21stCentury, conceptual frameworks, curriculum, engagement

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:44 AM 2 comments

Declaration of Educational Goals: Play

MCEETYA are seeking input on the new National Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians for the next decade. See previous post.

The draft document emphasizes the importance in times of rapid change and with current global challenges of having creative and curious learners who can think in new ways, embrace opportunity and innovate.

One powerful way to promote creativity and innovation is to create educational environments that allow learners the mental, emotional and physical space to safely play, explore possibilities and take risks - and not just for very young learners.

Play for learning does much to maintain engagement, promote well-being and create opportunities for transformation in understanding. Play can also bridge formal and informal learning and break down barriers to learning. The serious games initiative for example is one way education can use online games to enhance learning.

The importance of play for learning is a little hard to find in the current draft that validly highlights the need for skilling in essential literacy and numeracy, building foundational knowledge and skills in all learning areas, and achieving excellence.

As well as talking about how we as a community can achieve these educational goals "with support and hard work - from children and young people and their parents..." perhaps we also need to say something about playfulness, imagination and celebration.

All work and no play makes for a dull declaration of educational goals :-)

There may be other things we can do to promote creativity, imagination and innovation. Ken Robinson asked if schools kill creativity at TED two years ago and his message has been reverberating around the globe ever since.

Should there also be something in the declaration about students following their passion and developing personal interests and talents?

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Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:20 AM 1 comments

Declaration of Educational Goals: Foresight

MCEETYA are seeking input on the new National Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians for the next decade. See previous post.

• critical and cross-disciplinary thinking
• values of resilience and ingenuity
• thinking flexibly and creatively
• innovation and problem solving
• multi-disciplinary capabilities
• engaging with new subject disciplines

However this does not highlight enough the need for futures thinking, skills and tools. It is not enough to be able to cope with change and solve problems - although these are very necessary skills.

We need young Australians who can create their preferred futures, who have skills in problem prevention and social foresight, and who have the optimism for the future that comes with the empowerment these capabilities bring.

We need to be able to predict the consequences of our personal and collective actions rather than react to global challenges decades after they were caused - particularly with some of far-reaching applications of today's new bio/nano/gene technologies. We need young Australians who question underpinning assumptions and worldviews before they engage in a search for solutions.

Futures studies or social foresight has appeared regularly over the last few decades in educational discourse but is often overwhelmed by more immediate concerns and priorities. We need to think more creatively about how we can include the skills and tools of social foresight in education. Our successful future depends on it - locally and globally.

As far as the draft document goes perhaps an immediate improvement would be to include problem prevention with problem solving, foresight with resilience, and questioning assumptions and worldviews with critical thinking.

We certainly need "successful learners" who "have the capacity to make sense of their world and think about how things became the way they are" but perhaps we also need to add "and can create preferred futures".

See also World Futures Studies Federation and the WFSF Teaching Commons Resources

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Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum, futures

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:05 AM 0 comments

Educational Goals for Young Australians

Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum

posted by Roger Stack @ 3:17 PM 0 comments

Transformative Journeys

Oxygen and Hydrogen combining to form water was the metaphor chosen by Minister for Education, David Bartlett MP to convey the transformative aspects of the government's new agenda for post-compulsory education in Tasmania.
He was referring to the integration of year 11/12 colleges and TAFE to form the Tasmanian Polytechnic which will open its doors to students from January 2009.

Transformation of learning and training to provide holistic education for all students was a frequently repeated theme in the 2 day conference the Minister was opening. The conference was skillfully organised to canvas the educational imperatives, to point to some new possibilities and to reflect the nature of the transformational journey required.

Presenters including Caldwell and Sidoti gave the consistent message that today's educational institutions will only fall further behind if they attempt to meet 21st Century needs within even the best 20th century learning institutions. What is required is educational transformation not just reform. They called for

• new educational thinking and curriculum
• new educational structures
• new educational cultures

Now this might sound like a difficult task for a state system - and an impossible one by January 2009 but we are not starting from scratch... nor are we asked to complete the transformation by that time...

We already know how the transformed system should begin. We have known many of the educational imperatives and some aspects of the solution for at least a decade. In fact some conference delegates had flash-backs to 2004 and even 2000 when much of the same data and educational directions were made clear at presentations opening the Tasmanian State of Learning and Learning Together reform agendas.

But we are not going round in circles... Our current level on the educational change spiral is about systemic structural change. Previous spirals have been about curriculum (eg PY10, ELs, Training Reform Agenda), community (eg partnerships), authentic learning (eg applied, enterprise and project-based)... We are now more informed, more experienced, and perhaps more adventurous... when it comes to educational change.

The current spiral is about personalised learning (student at the center, pathways).

To achieve this goal Caldwell believes we need to align our intellectual, social, financial and spiritual capital.

Can we integrate our current expertise in engaging pedagogy, meaningful curriculum and working partnerships in the post-compulsory sector to create new possibilities with new cultures?

When hydrogen and oxygen combine in a test tube you can hear a loud 'pop'... Plenty of pops were also heard in chat sessions held following the presentations!

But there were also the first tentative signs of water - new possibilities - new structures, new curriculum, new partnerships, new educational cultures...


Water image: CC Solkoll and ocean.flynn
Capital image: Adapted from an image by Caldwell

Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum, holistic, transformation

posted by Roger Stack @ 5:04 PM 1 comments

Doing IT Differently - IT begins...

We are one week into the academic year now and much has happened... This PowerPoint explains the purpose and thinking behind the Student-Directed Inquiry course - the new TQA syllabus designed to stimulate learning skills and ways of thinking for work, study and life in the 21st century. (PowerPoint with notes - click/hover top left corner icon on each page - for those with access to our Moodle.)

Students have signed up for some of the online services that we will use to help us keep the learning personalised and flexible... Twitter, Google Reader and 43Things.

For those who would like to read a blow-by-blow description I've started a new journal HC Interactive Media.

While I've used these tools and processes with classes in the past this is the first time that it's all been coherently integrated... It's early days yet but things are looking very promising.

Exciting stuff!

Labels: 21stCentury, ICT tools, personalisation

posted by Roger Stack @ 10:24 AM 2 comments

Doing IT Differently...

THE TIME HAS COME... to KNOW a new education system... to DO new things in education... to BE different in education...

Heard it all before? Well yes... these things were said in 1998 with the 21st century looming... and the recognition that education needed to change.

After a decade of talking and projects and reforms - and learning - it now might be time for actual transformation to occur... or at least the next stage of our (my) transformation where we (I) actually KNOW how we (I) want ACT and BE in education.

How different? My sense of difference comes as I reflect on my personal and systemic journey of the last decade - and in particular the last 2 years - and then attempt to project myself into 2008/9.

Over the next few posts I intend to reflect on the key initiatives and understandings of the last two years that I think will shape my - and my students' and colleagues - experience of education in 2008 and beyond in our State system.

Gee - did I just write that - this should be interesting... :-)

Next - A: Team Teaching

Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum, engagement, transformation

posted by Roger Stack @ 10:48 AM 0 comments

Knowledge and Slowness in Learning

Knowledge workers need to know how to use tools and frameworks to do their jobs according to Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning at Reuters UK. Jennings painted a clear picture of the way workplaces have changed over the last 20 years on day 2 of the Global Summit 2006 in Sydney:

• 70% of jobs created in the USA since 1998 have been for "knowledge workers"
• "knowledge worker"jobs now make up 41% of all jobs in the USA (2005)
• only 20-30% of workplace performance is knowledge/skills related (2005)
• people learn 80% of what they need to know informally on-the-job

He cited Kelley's longitudinal study showing how the amount of knowledge that we need to know in our own minds to do our jobs has changed: 1986 - 75% ... 1997 - 15-20% ... 2006 - 8-10%

Jennings spoke of the need to shift from training to learning; of the need to know less and learn more; of the need for workers to have tools and frameworks to locate and process what they need to know when they need to know it.

And now for something completely different...

Geetha Narayanan from the School of Art Design and Technology, India presented two concepts. The first was the importance of digital story telling - showing how young disadvantaged people can be empowered to use cameras and recorders to tell their own powerful stories. And to tell them so well that they win international competitions.

The second was the notion of "slow schools". Narayanan spoke of the importance of health and well-being among today's technology rich, fast-paced and consumer oriented middle-class learners. The slow school idea was spawned by the slow food campaign which began as a protest against fast-food outlets but is rapidly becoming a global movement and has recently been popularised by TV chef Jamie Oliver as slow food moves into schools and begins to transform education...

Slow schools look for opportunities to slow the pace of thinking and move to being in the moment. Narayanan gave examples of moving students from thinking about the sun to embodying and being the sun as they sit in circles with feet touching, or slowly draw 10 suns rather than one, or as they dance watching sunrise...

Slow schools allow time for discussion and reflection - and focus on how students form concepts and make meaning.

Co-incidentally my blog reading recently introduced me to "slow design" and "slow cities" - the latter is already a network of 100 towns in 10 countries embodying the 'slow' metaphor.

Perhaps this brings new meaning to the concept of the slow learner :-)

Labels: 21stCentury, conceptual frameworks, transformation

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:45 AM 3 comments

Designing Courses: Learning Areas and Capabilities

I've been playing with models that might clarify the process of designing courses in order to provide for all students under the new Post Year 10 Curriculum Framework for Tasmania. I've also been reading about the current call for a "back to basics" national curriculum and in particular thinking about Alan Reid's proposal's in Rethinking National Curriculum Collaboration - but within a State rather than national context. (School education is the constitutional responsibility of the States in Australia.)

Before the current PY10 Curriculum Framework was developed the structure of the curriculum was hard to conceptualise. In the late 80s and early 90s traditional subjects were loosely grouped into 'learning areas'; new programs to support literacy, numeracy and ICT literacy were developed; new courses emerged and some stayed; student support, health and well-being and career/pathway options evolved; key competencies/capabilities were identified...

However much of this sat outside traditional subjects/leaning areas - conceptually and often in implementation as well - or sometimes uneasily within syllabuses and timetables as attempts were made to "embed them".

Syllabus development most often occurred within subject/learning areas and tended to reinforce existing knowledge structures, ways of learning, teaching and assessment. New courses often failed to gain a foothold if they did not fall neatly into traditional ways of organising knowledge.

The new PY10 Curriculum Framework is based on agreed values and purposes arrived at during a long period of co-construction. We are currently looking at the structures and processes that might inform the provision of courses within the Framework. What range of courses will be available to choose from?

While we now have a State Curriculum Framework individual year 11/12 schools will be responsible for implementation to meet student needs in local contexts. Which courses will schools choose to offer their students? And how will individual classroom teachers interpret these courses?

A key question at the moment is what sits between the values and purposes and the capabilities/literacies? What are the contexts for learning? Can we move away from learning areas? Should we move away from learning areas? Following Reid's suggestion (in the above paper) can we develop courses where students learn for the capabilities through the learning areas - leaving the details of what learning to schools, teachers and students?

Or will existing ways organising knowledge/skills and their associated communities of practice work against providing opportunities to develop all the capabilities required for the 21st century? Will anything really change if traditional learning areas still dominate structures and processes for course/syllabus development.

And where do transdisciplinary approaches fit? How do we move beyond disciplines to engage in the kind of rigorous thinking that is needed to meet today's societal and planetary challenges? Can we construct valued learning experiences/courses that exist in the space between the disciplines and their well developed resources/support structures/dialogues?

Perhaps we need to use other lenses/conceptual frameworks to help us create courses/learning experiences that help students to make meaningful connections beyond subject borders and to "know what they don’t know". Can we generate meaningful content/contexts by asking the big questions? Is an 'integral' lens useful as a conceptual framework?

Perhaps course developers and classroom teachers (hopefully the same people) need to draw on a course development toolbox containing a variety of conceptual lenses... A learning ecology/connectivism framework such as the following by George Siemens that looks at "know where" as well as "know-how" and "know-what" might be one tool.

And how can we establish course developement models/principles that ensure the ongoing currency of courses in today's rapidly changing world?

Labels: 21stCentury, conceptual frameworks, curriculum, learning, literacies, transdisciplinary

posted by Roger Stack @ 12:58 PM 2 comments

Learning from Gaming

As educators we would like to try to engage teenagers in learning. Video game developers have to engage teenagers in learning - or they are out of work! I've just read James Gee's Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul and have much to reflect on...

Gee believes that good video games give people control, agency and meaning while promoting deep learning that closely aligns with the learning that has often been identified as necessary for the 21st century - creative problem solving, metacognition, systems thinking, transformative learning...

Gee believes that video game developers do this by:

• giving people well designed visual and embodied experiences
• helping people to use these experiences to think imaginatively about future actions
• letting people safely experience the consequences of their actions

He believes that game developers use the latest research from neuroscience and are guided by many "learning principles" such as:

• learning is experiential
• learning should encourage risk taking
• learning is an extended engagement of self
• learning can be customised to suit learning styles
• problem solving leads to generalisations that assist in solving more complex problems
• learning is "just in time" or "on demand"
  
• learning is interactive
• there are many ways to solve a problem
• there are intrinsic rewards keyed to the learner's level of expertise

Gee points out that in spite of their success at engaging learners few video game publishers associate their products with 'learning' - too much negative baggage associated with that word :-)

I am not a video game player... the last games I played were mostly in the late 80s... minesweeper was about as far as I got... but I now think that there might be much to gain by looking at the ways in which good video games engage teenagers - partly because most of our teenagers are so-called "digital-natives" - and partly because I know that the majority of our students play video games - particularly males - and to very high levels.

How is it that strategy games like Rise of Nations can build player skills and knowledge to the point where they are thinking and operating across space and time in many complex relationships to create a well integrated and sustainable civilization - all for FUN?

As Gee says: "This is heady stuff indeed. This type of thinking is the very hallmark and foundation of the deepest and most complicated thinking in the sciences. Biologists, physicists, and social scientists must think in these sorts of ways in order to study the complex systems they are engaged with."

In the book Gee outlines the many ways in which different kinds of video games engage both individual and multiple players in virtual worlds from first-person to god-like perspectives... each type of game involving different player-game dynamics, skills, knowledge and development.

Another aspect that interests me at the moment is the way in which video games encourage players to move up levels gaining expertise and experience... Can we learn something here about good assessment practice?

Labels: 21stCentury, learning, video games

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:43 AM 2 comments

Flat Classrooms

I've been following David Warlick's exploration of the concept of Flat Classrooms.

Yesterday's post responded to a comment by David Davies that asked.. "to what extent do you think students in the not-so-flat classroom are not curious, not self-directed, uncommunicative, etc?" David responded by saying that "there is nothing new here, that you haven't already heard..." but I'm not so sure...

I agree that there may be nothing new in the sense that we have talked about these issues before and that students have always been learners. BUT I don't think we have talked much about systemic solutions that address some of these issues by looking at our underlying values and assumptions. Educational provision has rarely been built on conversations between "student and teacher, learner and curriculum, classroom and the world" that David is asking for in the flat classroom.

And I don't think we are seeing much of the kind of curiosity, self-direction and communication that we as a nation (Australia) now require of students - particularly among the more traditionally "academically educated" students. Government, business, community and higher education - who are looking at the economic and social realities of living and woking in today's globalised technology rich world - are telling us that students:

• are good at following "recipes learned at school" that provide solutions to closed problems,
• are curious to learn more within known boundaries and
• can communicate what they know.
  

BUT

• they are not good at open-ended problems
• they ask few questions
• they don't know what they don't know - and are over confident about what they think they do know
• they don't collaborate very well
• they are not innovative - particularly outside disciplinary boundaries

I also think there is much more to explore using this "flatness" metaphor... We need to question how much students need to climb disciplinary ladders of knowledge and skills based on assumptions about developmental stages and academic hierarchies.

Students are often told that they have to "master the basics" before doing more interesting and contemporary things within a discipline and across disciplines. Unfortunately that process often takes 12 or more years and many (most?) don't stay in education long enough to be inspired by the genuine communities of practice/inquiry that dealing with today's knowledge and issues at the leading edge. We need some "flatness" here as well.

Of course some students can see this for themselves. They are some of the really self-directed learners who learn beyond the classroom walls. Here is how one science student described his learning to me:

"As far as my reading goes it's generally the Internet or magazines (national geographic and new scientist) or books like brief history of time and universe in a nutshell (illustrated edition - much easier to read than the original) I have NEVER had a good science teacher but that probably has more to do with me than them!

I would be one of those @#$#@ students - like in grade seven we had to name one of the 'three' states of matter and she mistakenly picked me and when I said plasma she rolled her eyes and sighed.

That's how I feel every time I'm forced to learn something wrong, even in year 11 & 12 (last year) they teach us the 'model atom' and you just think “wrong” - friction “wrong” - and do stuff with your friends [till it comes to exam time]. The best advice I got was play dumb – don’t give the right answer - give the answer according to what you've been 'taught'.

That's why I could not teach physics because I'd want to explain the quantum flux to the kindergarten kids. Instead I'm [leaving the state] so I can get into the cutting edge stuff…"

Labels: 21stCentury, assessment, collaboration, curriculum, engagement, global, learning, teaching

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:50 AM 0 comments

The Best of Times - The Worst of Times?

(This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.)

This great Flash mockumentary by journalists Sloan and Thompson (thanks for the links Pete) explores the possible death of print media (NY Times) in a media 'history' from the birth of the WWW in 1989, through the births of Amazon(94), Google(98) and Blogger(99), the pivotal 'Web2.0' [my term] year of 2004 and into 2015 when the NY Times is "just a newsletter for oldies"...

According to columnist John Leo:

"Rupert Murdoch, speaking at the recent convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, advised the group to encourage their readers to use the Internet more as a supplement to print coverage He warned that newspapers risked being "relegated to the status of also-rans" if they don't make use of the Internet. Columnist Rick Brookhiser had a blunt comment in the New York Observer: Murdoch was just being polite--what he meant is that newspapers are dead."

I recently discovered from Tim Lauer's blog that the NY Times is now podcasting. :-)

(There is an earlier version called EPIC 2014 which has some interesting differences...)

I wonder what an 'history' of education from 1989 to 2015 would look like? Educational possibilities for around 2015 is something a number of edu-blogs have been exploring over the last couple of months... eg 2Cents Worth

How much leadership and wisdom will educators (and students) inject into the educational version of 'EPIC'? (Will there even be an distinct education version?) Will it all 'just happen' without direction from educators? Will it be superficial or deep?

The time to co-create preferred educational futures is certainly NOW if we want to move into the best of educational times... Fortunately we are onto it :-)

Labels: 21stCentury, communication, ICT tools

posted by Roger Stack @ 9:02 AM 4 comments

Integral Futures

All education is futures education according to Australian futurist Richard Slaughter. He says most schools are about preparing students for active citizenship in the future. And "young people do not need to be persuaded to consider the future. They already have powerful interests in the self-constitution of their own lives."

However he also says:

"The challenge is to re-invent schools on a new philosophical and operational basis, not see them over-whelmed by economic rationalism, still less by the over-hyped 'communications revolution'. "

I'm reading Futures Beyond Dystopia: Creating Social Foresight by Slaughter and think it has much to inform current curriculum initiatives - particularly now in Tasmania with Personal Futures and World Futures 'essential learnings' for K-10 and Futures a key purpose in the new Post-Year 10 Framework.

To avoid shallow and often overly Westernised and empirical futures perspectives Slaughter calls for an integral approach to futures at all levels of education including students, teachers, curriculum leaders and administrators. "The need is for a broader and deeper view of futures enquiry."

'Integral futures' is about including subjective inner realities along with objective outer realities - something often called for by holistic educators. Slaughter shows how Wilber's 4 Quadrant AQAL Integral Model provides a powerful conceptual framework that gives breadth, depth and balance to futures literacy, futures methodologies and futures tools.

In this way the critical importance of looking at cultural values, assumptions and worldviews (lower left quadrant) and the inner world of individual identity, meaning and purpose (upper left quadrant) as key aspects of any transformational process is not forgotten.

Slaughter maps pop futurism, problem-oriented futures work, critical futures studies, epistemological futures, and environmental scanning across Wilber's quadrants showing the strengths and gaps in each approach over the last century.

Of course with all this talk of futures we need to remind ourselves that futures education is about empowering students in the present - or better still perhaps in the 'NOW' which includes and expanded sense of past-present-future.

I recently saw this Alan Watts Flash presentation on an Integral Education Forum which graphically shows the dangers of always looking to (waiting for) the 'future'... well worth a look if you haven't seen it.

With the current global focus on transforming learning and teaching an 'integral futures' perspective seems timely as we look at possible, probable and preferred educational futures - lest we forget the critical place of both individual and collective inner realities... for both students and teachers.

Labels: 21stCentury, conceptual frameworks, integral, metacognition, worldviews

posted by Roger Stack @ 2:37 PM 0 comments

Educating for a future that is already here

QRIO Robot

I've been looking at Sony's latest robot - QRIO. Susan Greenfield showed a video of a group of school girls having a very human-like conversation with QRIO at the July Thinking Conference.

The Sony web site has lots of info. These animations are pretty good - in Flash - see the second and fourth.

At this site there are more vids - one of QRIO throwing a ball ... and one with a group of QRIOs dancing ...

QRIO is a Science Ambassador for UNESCO and is touring the world.

Pity he is not yet for sale...

World's First Bionic Man

In May 2001, working as a high-power lineman 54 year old Jesse Sullivan was electrocuted so severely that both of his arms needed to be amputated.

Jesse now has bionic arms. See story and video clip.

Doctors took nerves that used to go to the arm and moved those nerves onto chest muscles. The nerves grew into the chest muscles, so when Jesse thinks “close hand,” a portion of his chest muscle contracts and electrodes that detect this muscle activity tell the computerized arm when to close the hand. So when he thinks “close hand” and his artificial hand closes.

Billion Dollar Industry Within 5 Years

enon, a service robot, comes in Citrus Yellow, Lily White and Lavender Blue for just $72,000.

10 of the robots have already been ordered by shops to provide guidance, escort guests, transport objects, and do security patrols. We could have one on campus: “You are late for class. Please move on before I SMS your teacher, the security guard, your parents...“ :-)

The price is expected to more than halve within a year and robot production is predicted to be a 1.2 billion dollar industry within 5 years.

Robot Car Wins $2 Million

Last week the robot car Stanley won $2,000,000 for crossing the finish line first in a US desert. It is not remote controlled - a computer does the driving.

Stanley was built using a diesal powered Volkswagon Touareq R5.

See a video-clip of Stanley on the downloads page at http://www.grandchallenge.org/

There was even a driverless motorcycle - Ghost Rider Robot - http://www.ghostriderrobot.com/

2005 is certainly THE year for robotics! What does this mean for students and the curriculum?

One way to engage students is through Robocup Junior where the challenge is to build robots that can dance to music, rescue someone in distress or kick a soccer goal. Robocup junior is inspired by Robocup International where the challenge is to "develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team" by 2050.

Labels: 21stCentury

posted by Roger Stack @ 9:43 AM 0 comments

Thinking, Learning and Futures

Here are some of the key ideas I got from the presenters at this conference.


Thinking is about learning. Piaget said “Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.” (Claxton)

We now have fourth-generation theories on thinking/learning. Learning dispositions are transferable from one context to another and are transdisciplinary (Claxton).

We need to educate for the unknown by providing powerful conceptual systems, global perspectives and coherent big picture stories (Perkins, Eckersley, Olson, Slaughter).

‘Knowledge’ is problematic because it is increasing rapidly, is context fixated and for most people it is full of misconceptions (Perkins, Senge, Slaughter). Knowledge is a social phenomenon (Senge).

Local and global challenges are pressing and we require empowered positive thinkers capable of cross disciplinary synthesis, systems thinking, collaboration and shared intelligence (Eckersley, Moran, Ritchhard, Olson, Slaughter). We are beyond simplistic solutions (Moran, Senge, Eckersley).

Psychological and social well-being (mental, emotional, spiritual) are important for deep thinking and learning (Wood, Eckersley, Senge, Slaughter).

Spirituality (not religion) is a key emerging transformation of the late 20th/early 21st centuries (Senge, Eckersley, Olson).

Personal and social foresight requires a level of futures literacy as well as futures tools, methodologies and strategies (Slaughter).

Changes in Australian values, assumptions and access to ICT are leading to 'citizen centered' democracy where a market and economic forces are no longer the primary drivers in government and the public service bureaucracy. We need multidisciplinary risk-taking thinkers (Moran).

We need to be explicit about our assumptions and world views because they underpin our thinking and colour our perceptions (Senge, Olson, Slaughter, Varey). Memes and value systems are crucial factors in thinking, learning and the envisioning of desired personal and world futures (Barber, Perkins, Slaughter, Varey, Janson).

The world is not in crisis - our worldviews are (Varey). Our languages (eg mother tongue, bilingual, mathematical...) also filter our experiences, influence our comprehension and affect our sense of morality and hope (Gupta).

Thinking, learning and inquiry are important both within disciplines (ways of knowing and inquiry) and across disciplines (Perkins). What we teach is just as important as how we teach (Perkins).

We need to teach problem-prevention as much as problem-solving (Wood, Perkins). We need both individual and collective thinking - multiple intelligences and shared intelligence (Ritchhard, Wood, Moran). And collective creativity and inspiration (Mol).

With the advent of new 21st-century technologies individuals have access to knowledge and resources that can have an enormous detrimental impact on local and global communities. We need ethical understanding and spiritual perspectives (Olson, Slaughter).

Presenters
Marcus Barber - Swinburne
Guy Claxton – Bristol University, UK
Art Costa – California State University, Habits of Mind, USA
Richard Eckersley – National Centre for Epidemiology & Population, ANU, Australia
Sunetra Gupta – Mathematician, epidemiologist and author, Oxford University, UK
Jan Jansen - Sweden
Terry Moran - Secretary, Victoria Department of Premier and Cabinet, Australia
Jan Mol - Ad!dict Creative Lab - Brussels
Molly Olson - Eco Futures Australia, US Gov Advisor on Sustainability
David Perkins – Harvard, USA
Ron Ritchhard – Harvard, USA
Peter Senge – Society for Organisational Learning, USA
Richard Slaughter - Foresight International, Swinburne, Australia
Fiona Wood – McComb Foundation and Australian of the Year
Will Varey - Integral theorist, Australia

Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum, learning, worldviews

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:10 AM 1 comments

Gates Crashing the Curriculum Party?

America's high schools are obsolete according to Bill Gates.

Through the Gates philanthropic foundation he has spent nearly one billion dollars helping to rebuild or redesign 1500 US high schools. He doesn't claim to be an education expert but says that as head of a corporation and a foundation what he sees “leaves him appalled”.

He talks about how high schools fail to prepare most students for work, tertiary education and citizenship - because they were designed that way! He believes that in the past governments only required a small percentage of students to qualify for tertiary entrance but that today all students should do so. And he says that research has proved that all students can do so.

In his address to the recent US National Education Summit on High Schools he said that there are two arguments for better high schools:

• the economic argument - in today's global economy it hurts us if all students are not being educated
• the moral argument - we need to do something because it's hurting the students

He pointed out that as far back as 2001 India had almost a million more university graduates than the US - and that China now has twice as many graduates as the US. This puts the US behind in the international supply of knowledge workers - workers that are now only a mouse-click away.

The schools being funded by Gates are built on principles based around the “new three R’s“:

• The first R is Rigor – making sure all students are given a challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or work;
• The second R is Relevance – making sure kids have courses and projects that clearly relate to their lives and their goals;
• The third R is Relationships – making sure kids have a number of adults who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve.

How is Australia's secondary education system hurting?
What kind of education would business interests here promote if they began to put large sums of money into secondary education?

Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum, learning

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:25 AM 0 comments

Quotes from the iNET Conference

Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum

posted by Roger Stack @ 8:57 PM 0 comments