With a clear mind and conviction of purpose, anything is possible. Give in to your inner purpose, feel the power of purpose, and focus on the reality that matters. Society creates illusion of needs, desires, and demands. These are only reality if we allow them to be. Look back on your life, what do you see? What matters most? What speaks to you about your past life? What differences have you made in the world? In the lives of others?
Now, look forward and predict what differences you will make in the lives of others, or in the world. Predict how you will change the world and make it a better place. Be the change, live the change, drive the change. It’s you–really…it’s you.
When you wish upon a star, what dreams come true? Only those that we most desire and only those that we BRING to us. It’s in us all, the desire to live, to love, to be happy, to connect. It’s only requires our focus, our thoughts, our presence.
When was the last time you were present in your own story?
Creativity is often associated with artists, musicians, writers, and poets however, I have always seen creativity as something that spans beyond the arts. As information technology professionals, we live creativity every day. We tackly complex problems, resolve difficult and hard to identify issues, perform a multiude of duties framed with more ambiguity than most CEOs see in a year, and we do so among a sea of chaos–such is the life of today’s school technology leaders. We learn to embrace ambiguity, chaos, and multi-tasking to ensure that our students have access to quality learning tools and environments.
In this video, Gladwell talks about the role of chaos and imagination in being creative. Some feel that Gladwell’s view of creative arts vs. sciences is an old dichotomy–one that doesn’t fit the modern world. Yet for technology professionals his perspective reminds us that in the midst of chaos we should look for patterns and connection among disparate data–this is where innovations occur!
It is and has been commonly accepted that technology is key to connecting experts and novices in ways that aren’t possible in a face-to-face world. Throughout the ages, technology has accomplished just that aim. We have reached a point in the evolution of technology where we can now shed old models of instruction and adopt new models, supported by technology, that scaffold and support how people learn.
However, what we have seen in the present time period is not the shedding of old models of instruction, but rather an assimilation of new technology into old models. In fact, professors and teachers are often strongly influenced by methods from the face-to-face classroom. The learning sciences offer great opportunity for educators to become part of the shift, part of the change, part of the transformation of what we call “teaching/learning.”
Our Question: “Can technology help us reinvent how we prepare people for healthly and productive lives?” Key points, from a recent session at AECT, answers this question:
•Increased access to learning opportunity is a moral imperative that makes a far-reaching difference in people’s lives
•Digitally-based courses and delivery offer powerful ways technology can expand access
•Some of the difficult in transforming learning and teaching is that students, administrators, and funders EXPECT education to look a certain way i.e. teachers presenting information
•Much of the time (calendar year) spent in formal education settings is less than time spent outside the school setting
•A blended environment leveraging both formal and informal learning creates a more powerful design for teaching and learning
•One of the major challenges faced will be how educators respond effectively and efficiently to rapid change
•Given the continuous and rapid pace of change, the importance of expertise becomes critical. People must navigate at the edges of their existing knowledge and skills, called adaptive expertise, and this requires the letting go of the “old ways” or “unlearning”
•Adaptive people need adaptive organizations
•Book: The new division of labor: How computers are creating the next job market (Levy and Murnane), explores the value of technology-enhanced learning as seen in the evolution of the stock exchange industry
•Digital natives are already self-directed learners, they are already influenced by learning opportunities afforded by technology outside formal learning.
•Students capacity for independent learning is essential to their future-success.
Our challenge as Education Technology Professionals seeking ways to transform learning is to find the answers to this key question:
How can technology, aligned with guidelines from the learning sciences enable the blending of formal and informal AND break down silos and develop an integrated approach to learning?
