Global Education- Alan November
Posted by gljones on December 4, 2007
The following is a mini-review of a podcast by Alan November. Mr. November is a popular presenter and thinker about educational technology. He sat down with the podcasting team for a brief conversation about his FETC presentation entitled “Preparing Students To Succeed In a Global Economy.” You can read more about Alan at his website novemberlearning.com.
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/item.php?itemID=9764
REVIEW:
The global education is expanding to the entire world. Countries that were seen as “third world” in the past, is now surpassing the US in education and commercial dominance. The internet has made this possible.
One of his comments that caught my attention was this. “…there are more gifted students in China today than are the total number of students in America.” as well as this statement “..we cannot compete with $12,000 engineers in this country..” Other countries are motivated to learn, we are not.
Our students are behind the rest of the world. November says that students need to take control of their own learning. They need to be motivated. Kids use the electronic media. I-pods are everywhere. He suggests that all teachers need Skype to communicate to others in the world. Every class should have a podcast and the students should produce it, not the instructor. Blogs should also be used in classes so that the students can communicate in all types of media and the world should be a classroom.
An example he uses is the US vs England regarding the Revolutionary War (the US title) and the events that caused it. He says that students should communicate and debate their facts with each other.
He also talks about getting away from testing and the source for analyzing what the student has learned. Learning should be automatic and we, as educators, should strive to keep the natural motivation that kids have active.
