As I wrote yesterday's post, I was reminded of a panel discussion that I listened to last Friday at EduCon entitled "What is Smart?". The panelists from the session included the following individuals.
- Loren Brichter - CEO of atebits Software and developer of Tweetie Twitter software.
- Prof. Martha Farah - Director, Center for Neuroscience & Society and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania
- Happy Fernandez - President of the Moore College of Art
- Prof. Eddie Glaude - William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies. Chair, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University.
- David Shenk - Author of The Genius in All of Us, Data Smog and The End of Patience (and others)
Throughout the session I did take some notes that you can view, but I was also monitoring the conversations that were happening on Twitter at #educon. Although there were five distinguished individuals speaking on the stage, there were also hundreds of individuals in the audience who were contributing to the conversation. Personally, I took as much away from the conversations on Twitter as I did from the panelists, and that is in no way a criticism of the panel. Instead, what was happening in the audience served as a model of how technology can enhance education. Individuals were able to share their views and receive feedback from a large audience because of the technology. It would have been nearly impossible to moderate that large of conversation without the technology.
Although not all of the sessions used technology, they all modeled collaboration and engagement. Like most conferences, I expected to sit through sessions with bulleted Power Points where the presenters shared their infinite knowledge. In contrast, in the sessions I attended the "audience" did as much talking as the presenters did. The presenters did not act as gatekeepers to all knowledge.
This brings me back to my initial comments about last Friday's panel discussion which attempted to answer the question "What is Smart?". After sitting and listening for two hours, I found it ironic that our "smart" panelists were unable to come up with an answer for that question. In schools we expect our "smart" students all to come up with the same answers to the same questions in a certain amount of time. Those tests that measure success for both schools and students are held in the highest regard by politicians and community members. For me, they truly don't measure what is important.
The title of this post was random thoughts, and if you're still with me you can see that my mind has been all over the map! Here are some other burning questions that I thought of as I prepared this post.
What is smart? How do schools measure smart? Should we even attempt to define and assess smart?
Can our students think outside of the box? Is it measured? Is it important?
Can students collaborate? Is collaboration seen as an important skill in schools?
Is the teacher expected to be the "smartest" person in the room?
Should students memorize things that they can Google in a matter of seconds?
How do we know if a school encourages students to create?
Can technology enhance traditional learning? Should it?
Can technology destroy traditional learning? Should it?
Can schools of today actually survive? Should they?
Of course, I will expect that all of you answer these questions in 35 minutes and that you come up with the same answers!
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