Will Richardson has a piece about Mitch Resnick’s keynote address at the Building Learning Communitees 2005 conference. Some of his points resonated with me:
Weblogg-ed – The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
Guiding Principles: 1. Learning through design. 2. Following your interests. 3. Enouraging emergent community (natural collaboration, mentors). 4. Cultivating and environment of respect and trust. … [H]e’s saying that the knowledge we build from the information we have access to is important, but what is more important is moving toward where success and satisfaction will depend on the ability to think and act creatively.[... snip ...]
Kids are embracing these tools in creative ways…the job now is to not let the system suck the life blood out of them.
Those struck a cord with me because I’ve long maintained that the only difference between teaching kids and teaching adults is that adults have shorter attention spans. It seems to me that the system has the potential to suck the life blood out of all of us.
If we let it.