04 April 2006
New Trajectories for Skills Development
The Learning Innovator - Week 1 - Erica McWilliam
- There's too much going on to quote mantras to each other e.g. "facilitators". (Concentrate more on what's going on!)
- End of a traditional life narrative e.g. go to school, get a degree, start a job, save for a house, get married, have children!
- We need to unlearn as much as learn.
- Today's young people want things instantly - NOW - their decisions etc are fast - no delay! They want to wear technology.
- There's a major shift from providing content to building capacity. Knowledge is embedded in technology today e.g. if my sewing machine is broken I can't fix it like I could the old one because there's a computer in it. Therefore "knowing what to do when you don't know what to do is really important!" (Guy Claxton, Bristol Univ)
- We need a disposition to learning e.g. the old "rat in the maze story" what would happen if the walls were put on castors and were constantly moving?????
- "What to do if you need something to do" now appearing on classroom walls.
- There's been a shift from the normal supply chain to networks. Erica has a good article on Networks by Greg Hearn (available on request). No couch potato consumerism. People will by-pass you if you don't add value.
- "Learnacy" a term invented by Claxton - being a "resilient learner" and "learning from constructive complications of failure".
- Guy Claxton, Robert lePage, Rushkoff and Brad Haseman all talk about multi-tasking and being inter-generational. We need to edit a meaningful world rather than master content.
- Learners need a simple front end that's unpackable.
- Michael Gallagher - what would we stop doing on our learning journey? (Erica thought this was a good question for us to work with.)
- It is anticipated that young people today will have seven careers.
- What is the future of podcasting? (Stanford University have a great website detailing a podcasting experiment.) Is their an audio uprising? (Good questions Erica).
- We have to give people access to good ideas and they will be called "good ideas" if they are understood. They'll probably be called "theory" if not understood.
