Learning Collectives

I've just finished reading a post from Will about how we are currently "in between stories" of society and of education. This resonates strongly with me.

One statement he wrote came out of his time at the Future of Education earlier this week. He quotes Tom Carroll as saying “quality teaching today is a collective effort, not an individual accomplishment."

I also want to add to this the idea that quality learning today is a collective effort, not an individual accomplishment. The tools are about collaboration, about network formation, about learning what we can through the perspectives we gain from others.

Imagine a group of classrooms around the globe working together as one unit. Closely interconnected through all of the tools we know: Skype, Twitter, MSN, wikis, Google docs, podcasts, flickr, and blogs. A collective of classrooms, teachers and students pushing themselves towards accomplishing the learning goals they have set and designed.

Our learning can only be as powerful as the network we have access to. The globe is filled with millions of teachers and students and yet, often, our students only have access to those in the immediate room, and to us, one single teacher. Seems unfair and unfortunate. Forming communities of learners where each person realizes that their own learning is enhanced through contact with others and where we all bear some responsibility for each other's knowledge advancement is a different story to tell and one that is a powerful statement of connection for our time.

technorati tags:will, richardson, connection, classroom, change

Comments

[Karen Janowski]

But how does that happen?
The Edublogger community is still a very small percentage of the nationwide teaching community. Many teachers still view themselves as the "sage on the stage," the "keeper of knowledge." That is a tremendous responsibility and they need to know about the available tools that help them realize that "quality teaching is a collective effort."
In my area, teaching is still very much an individual accomplishment. Very difficult to change entrenched perspectives.