“What’s revolutionary for adults is normal for kids,” stated Jaime Casap of Google to technology leaders at a meeting of the Illinois Chief Technology Officers today. Casap implored school leaders to build great teachers, appeal to students’ motivations, focus on the basics, and prepare students for more education after high school, although not necessarily a four year college.
While many adults look for printed documents to learn new ideas, children look for YouTube videos for instruction and feedback on their skill development, Casap argued. Times have changed: revolution to normal.
Casap weaved stories from his life into his presentation about how education changed his opportunities. He made his case for developing important skills like communication, collaboration, and critical thinking, among others that cannot be assessed easily. Even with these opportunities he is concerned that the digital divide is growing larger. While cell phones have allowed more people to have Internet access, wired broadband is the true future of rich media digital learning. Broadband is lacking in homes of low-income families. It is hard to fill out a job application or write a paper on a smart phone.
Casap encouraged technology leaders to mesh technology tools with classroom learning for learning purposes. Further he stated that ” We should stop memorizing. This allows us to free our minds for other things.”
Standing at the edge of this revolution, children are eager to address their normal.
The Illinois Chief Technology, NFP is a non-profit corporation that provides professional development for K-12 technology leaders in Illinois.
Those are some interesting points but I have to disagree completely with what he says about memorizing – I would argue that memorizing is just as important now as it’s ever been. I don’t know who wrote the piece, but there’s another article out there that argues that our memories are getting worse because we literally no longer need them – our memory is a muscle and remembering key dates and facts is just as important as remembering what to buy from the supermarket.
If we are unable to remember key dates and facts we actually lose the ability to remember that grocery list too.
Thanks for sharing 🙂