Software applications

With the coming of the Asus and RM MiniBook - and the smart phone - (the first of the many I fancy)the way is now being opened up to hardware that pulls what it wants from the best of connectivity anywhere and at anytime. In viewing these tools think about how you would load your traditional 'software'.

There has been an interesting debate/discussion recently on the Naace forum concerning the future of educational software in the follow up to Elcs and the usefulness of COL.

There is a concern that schools (and COL) assume that:
OWNERSHIP of a software licence equalled USE and therefore BENEFIT. It doesn’t! So schools have loads of software that doesn’t get used – hardly sound investment. (thanks to Jonathan Wells for this thought)

So what now ?

As you look around the show here take a look at the media that the software applications or content gets 'delivered' to you on... and give the future a thought, its closer than you think.

The coming range of software applications will be sitting there online waiting for you in a true Web 2.0 fashion. You will pull them and pull on them when you want their functionality ... software like this from Softease:

Towards a definition of 21st Century Literacy

This is a straight quote from the website of The National Council of the Teachers of English based in Urbana, Illinois, USA ... picked from the blog of Will Richardson the writer of Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts. Will has written extensively about the 'read/write web'.

Adopted by the NCTE Executive Committee
February 15, 2008

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to:

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

Will the New Framework for Literacy in England and the collected guidance on literacy in other countries manage to reflect this quickly enough to fit our young people for their demanding futures in a digital world? Or will the learners simply plot their own pathways through the institutional maze?

This has a direct link into Ewan's post today about 'The outcomes for Literacy in Scotland'. He picks out all of the best bits ... thanks goodness there are some really good bits ... and the definition of what makes a 'text' is little short of wonderful to my way of thinking to my way of thinking. Might have to buy a kilt soon !

The Future for our kids

I have long ( and often hard) struggled to come to terms with the institutional nature of our education systems and establishment. One particular theme always come back to me and that is that of 'learner reponsibility' (never mind learner voice for the moment.) I have always opted for change by revolution or productive cataclysm ... think of Noah and the Flood ... sort of what I had in mind for education. A world sized skip so that we could begin again.

David Warlick comments to a post on Will Richardson's blog: 'that the best thing we could teach kids today is how to teach themselves ... in a response to David's:

Our kids’ futures will require them to be:

• Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.”
• More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information.
• More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world.
• Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids.
• More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically.
• Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice.
• More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world.
• Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.

The comments to this post (What Do We Know About Our Kids’ Futures? Really.) are well worth spending time on.

Further reading along the theme took me to Don Ledingham's Learning Log where he outlines the potential of 'Curriculum for Excellence' and sites 33 ideas which could together turn evolution to revolution.

They are worth a read in themselves to focus the mind but some in particular stick out to coincide with previous comments:

Young people over the age of 16 may devise their own curriculum by accessing courses available at their own school, other schools, further education and higher education institiutions learning and on-line learning environments.

Schools can use voluntary mentors who - following appropriate disclosure - can support the independent learning of students

All learners will have their own personal computer with wifi capacity which they can use at home and at school to access their learning.

Read about a maths lesson in 2020 ...

It seems to me that we have reached a sort of Tipping Point and that the way forward is to take a gigantic leap not based on all of our previous knowledge and experience but based on a leap of faith. We have too much information to compute quickly enough to make the radical changes that our young people need as they grow up in the digital world. (read about thin slicing)We are held back by our own fears ... it is time to grasp the light sabre in our hands and ...