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Paul Grobstein's picture

teaching virtuality follow up

I find myself increasingly thinking that the most satisfying thing about talking is the opportunity it provides to find out what other people are thinking, myself included, and from that to discover/create new ways of thinking.  Thanks to all for sharing that process with me this morning.  A few things that struck me particularly ...

More and more teachers (25%?) are indeed thinking of computers not only as something that makes it easier to do what they have always done but as providing the possibility of teaching in new and better ways.  That's a big change in a relatively short time (fifteen years or so), and very encouraging.  Hopefully our conversation this morning provides new grist for successfully spreading the word to additional teachers.

I continue to think that the notion that we all live all the time in "virtuality" is an important part of this grist.  Computers can both help us better understand this (by, among other things, making it obvious that our own ways of seeing the world are not universal), and help both ourselves and our students develop the skills needed to live in virtuality.  Among these are

  • recognizing that there are multiple ways to see the same thing
  • using the multiple ways to create new ways, and sharing those with each other to generate still more ways
  • testing ways of seeing things ("stories") with new observations, in new contexts to see how useful they continue or don't continue to be
  • becoming part of a world-wide discourse community, one in which everybody shares in the ongoing development of ways to see things 

Looking forward to seeing what other people made of our conversation, both now and in the future.  Materials used this morning are all available on our Serendip web site using the links in the notes above if any one wants them either for classes or for spreading the word to other teachers.  Again, thanks all for an enjoyable/generative conversation. 

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