Working At The Edge

Make School Different: Digital leadership & Transformation

Video – This is how we think

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I recently revisited a video I originally viewed well over a year ago. I highly recommend it as it presents ideas relevant to schools as we think about new media and shifting paradigms of communication. In this post, I’d like to share the video as well as my notes.

http://vimeo.com/12755237

  • Fundamental shift in human communication
  • As the data collection gets better and better (the elements in the system), the model has to become more complicated. As humans we want to “save the appearances” – to hold on to what we believe. How can we make the model more complex to account for the data but not change the model? In educational technology, we preserve the model and tack on the technology. We cannot continue to preserve the model.
  • The shift in communication will change our paradigm of education.
  • A paradigm shift doesn’t mean that everybody changes their point of view. It’s how we see things that changes – our relationship to the elements of the system. A paradigm shift is a shift in perspective – a new way of organizing the elements of the system.
  • We are moving from a print-centric paradigm to a network-centric paradigm. We are organizing the elements of the system differently

  • How do we in education adjust to the realities of a network-centric world?
  • Where do you imagine your work ending up – paper or screen? If it is a screen, then we need to rethink education – all the relationships change. The screen (or composing in the 21st century) means composing in text, sound, moving images.
  • Resourcefulness – thoughtful about how we move from information scarcity to information abundance.
  • Learning in Public – the notion of privacy and learning has changed. It is possible to watch the greatest thinkers of our time to think in real time. We don’t have to wait for their ideas to be fully formed and published in journals. We can now watch the thinking happen in public in real-time.
  • Our educational challenges are bigger than ever. In order to solve them, we need to think together in public. We now have the tools to do this more easily than ever. The world is fundamentally collective and collaborative.
  • Writing – a vehicle for extending thought – for thinking. What does it look like to write? The revision process is public – who is the audience? There now is an audience and it is possible to get a response in real time.
  • Writing is an invitation to conversation and get the ideas better – it’s not about “getting it right” the first time.
  • Writing in Public – In a networked-centric environment, you can have a conversation with the writer about the writing – challenging the ideas, extending the ideas – an open engagement of ideas.
  • Thinking in Public – We can pull out and see the resources the writer is working with – a 3-D topography of a textual world a writing moves through – text, video, sound, historic documents – hyperlinking. The writer provides for you the landscape of what he was accessing to work through his/her ideas. We can now see the canvas for our thinking and writing. Engaging with the ideas of others and presenting your own thoughts. Connective thinking in real time.
  • Reading in Public – Traditionally a solitary activity. Sites like Diigo allow us to share our thinking about our reading. We can read together online.
  • The challenge is to produce the curiosity that will motivate others to engage in the processes and technology of learning, writing, thinking and reading in public.
  • Turning away from the prison cell of the self and toward the new paradigm of public.

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Randy Ziegenfuss
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