“Schools as we know them are Obsolete”

The initial reason to create my blog was after I had watched this TED talk featuring Sugata Mitra and his vision for schools in the Cloud. It is a good deal beyond innovation, and most certainly far beyond what many of us can conceptualize for current students and future leaders. Is there criticism of Sugata’s pursuits and ideas? Of course there are – as it should be. I do think, however, that he challenges us in a uniquely and creative way to think about and confront several areas of teaching and learning.

There isn’t anything uniquely new or different with how one learns. With the discoveries and rapid changes in technology, learning is just cooler and better! Waiving my iPhone I explain to colleagues that the summation of all human understanding and knowledge is now virtually at our fingertips. I can ask Siri when and where the Civil War took place. In a bind, I can pull up hundreds of charts explaining Bloom’s Taxonomy.

We can’t continue to teach students what is virtually available all around us. We can encourage – a synonym for teaching – them to learn and understand, pause and wonder about how this information is relevant in their lives and to derive meaning, which I believe is the road to enabling a generation of life long learners.