TQ #4

One of the things that I have learned is that the educational system in the United States is complicated due to the different bodies that govern it. Although there is abundant aid in supporting school infrastructure, little has been done in terms of teacher professional development and support of 21st century pedagogy. People have underestimated the complexities that underlie the acquisition of technological tools to assist teaching. With the help of the work that my partners did, I was able to learn about the School systems in the United States. It is different to see how people, when adequately moved and motivated, can work pretty well in devising a plan of action to improve the status quo of the school. The involvement of district authorities, school authorities, business institutions, service providers, the parents, teachers and ultimately students, help in making their ideas and voices heard and taken into account in the construction of a plan. This is not an easy task and it takes a lot of time from the people involved to participate in commissions and sub-committees, designing a strategy. It is also important that all this information is made public, so everyone knows what is really happening, allowing total transparency in the process. In spite of all this, I think that the school that we are currently assessing is working hard to provide the teachers and students meaningful access to ICT resources. This is a technology rich school that merely needs to find better ways of implementing technology use in the classroom.

Some of the ideas that I have for a Vision of a Future School basically break the model of current practice that we have nowadays. I envision a school without walls. People will be able to go to school without having to be within school property 5 days a week. With access to the Internet, a student can be at home or in a library working his way through online or offline class work. There would be a need, though, to participate, at certain times, in face-to-face classes. Students from Elementary and all the way up to High School will have a laptop to use all the time. The software will be mainly Open Source and platforms used will be primarily online. There will be continuous support to teachers in providing the materials that they require to teach as long as they are not costly. The school will also recommend at inset sessions resources and ways of using new technological tools. Students will be engaged in learning knowledge that primarily develops their own abilities and interests. The curriculum will be adapted to meet the needs of the 21st Century professions and work place basic requirements.

With respect to the book that I am reading, I can comment that it has mostly presented the idea of this new era that we are actually living in called the Conceptual Age. The world is changing dramatically and the author describes specific scenarios in aspects that deal with our own behaviour as humans and the way we think with both parts of our brains. In order to be successful in life we need to use the potential that underlies in both sides of our heads. Pink approaches this by referring to the L-Directed and the R-Directed Thinking. In another section of the book, he presents the concepts of Abundance, referring to how much is available at the very reach of our hands. The other aspect that he refers to is the fact that Asia is being used to solve the many needs of the first world countries, due to the fact that labour is so cheap there. Finally, Automation is discussed and presented to make people understand how machines are actually taking over and ruling over us, humans, making our lives more dependent on them especially in fields like medicine, computing or the legal profession. The rest will be presented in another TQ.