This is a crosspost from the Students 2.0 blog. You may comment on the original post there.
You cannot ignore this. You cannot ignore us. The revolution has begun and we have tasted the power.
In contrast to the consumer generations before us, my generation is growing up a generation of producers. We are the YouTube/LiveJournal/Facebook generation. Mass media which has long been a one-to-many institution, allowing only the big and wealthy to transmit their messages, is turning into the many-to-many world of the internet and cheep consumer devices.
Whether it is posting videos taken on cell phones to youtube or photos taken on pocket-sized cameras to facebook. our generation expects to be able to broadcast their messages. We expect to be able to create and to share.
And, it is this expectation that makes our generation different. We are no longer content to be consumers of information. That is, we are no longer content to consume an education. To connect with today’s students, you must not only teach them, but encourage them to teach back.
It requires a flat classroom, one where students are first class citizens and are engaged in the activity of learning, not simply an audience.
Project-based learning, one-to-one programs, insert education buzzword of the month here, aren’t enough. The change has to be deeper.
Failure to innovate around this new structure will cause education to take an increasingly marginalized role in the lives of our students.
But, I don’t need to explain this to you, you already know it. So, what’s the wait?
Godspeed.