Unlearning

1. "We need to unlearn the strategy that collaborative work inside the classroom is enough and understand that cooperating with students from around the globe can teach relevant and powerful negotiation and team-building skills" (Will Richardson).

The types of skills students will need when they leave the classroom revolve around group-work and collaborating with individuals nation-wide. So why don't we start to get them involved in that kind of work in the classroom?

Alvin Toffler writes in his article "Future School," that "schools are supposed to be preparing kids for the business world of tomorrow, to take jobs to make our economy functional. The schools are changing, if anything, at 10 miles an hour. So how do you match an economy that requires 100 miles an hour with institution like public education?"

We need to match this need and get kids working in a global world NOW.

2. "We need to unlearn the idea that we are the sole content experts in the classroom, because we can now connect our kids to people who know far more than we do about the material we’re teaching" (Will Richardson).

Warlick writes, "Being literate in the twenty-first century means that we are beginning to think beyond the place we can see and the momentary time we experience. It means that we increasingly identify ourselves by what we know, and that what we know springs from a vast, dynamic, growing, global, increasingly accessible, and powerfully searchable world of information--and of people with whom we can share that information" (46).

In this class, we explore Will Richardson's blog for further research on how to use technology in the classroom. Dr. Stearns teaches us what she knows, but she also lets us explore other areas of information where we can learn from others who are also experts.

3. "We need to unlearn the notion that our students don’t need to see and understand how we ourselves learn" (Will Richardson).

Students need to be active in their own learning processes. They need to discover how they learn and how they can contribute to their own learning.

Friedman quotes Micah Sifry as saying, "The act of participating is like a muscle you have to use and we are so unused to being active participants in the process that even though the tools are there now many people don't use them. There are also still deeply integrated habits of deference to authority and institutions" (125).

We need to guide students towards discovering how they can actively exercise their muscle, so to speak. Everyone will learn in their own way; our job is to lead them there.