I recently presented a keynote speech entitled:
Keeping Your Head Above Water in a Sea of Information

Here’s the description: Drowning in a sea of information? Having difficulty keeping up with wave after wave of tools and resources? In this session, Tammy will provide a 6-step strategy that will help you to stay afloat.

For my Tip of the Week for the next 6 weeks, I will present my 6-step plan. Here’s Step 2:

For the first time in the history of education, students have the same access to information as the teacher. The teacher no longer controls the information.

At the same time, the world is changing at a rapid pace. Instead of requiring “knowledge” workers, the workplace needs people who are resourceful and creative. This shift will require that teachers adapt their teaching methods.

Note - this step is broad enough to be an entire course of its own. For now, we’ll just take a peek at some of the issues and options.

Idea 1: Stop trying to outsmart the kids

No matter how many rules and roadblocks we put in place, students will find a way to get around them. As a matter of fact, some students make a challenge out of figuring out ways to “beat” the system.

1. •Here’s a video example (actually a commercial that aired in Europe) of a student who finds a clever way to outsmart the teacher:
   http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5531932322879436662
   or
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4DfZ7GUNFg
   
   

2. •Go to www.youtube.com and do a search for “how to cheat”. When I tried it, I got 3,960 hits!
   
   

3. •Check this out! Students can use this Web tool to generate what appears to be a corrupt file:
   http://www.xnet.se/fd/
   

Idea 2: Make learning more relevant, engaging, and fun
“If educators invested a fraction of the energy on stimulating the students' enjoyment of learning that they now spend in trying to transmit information we could achieve much better results.”

”Thus, the abiding truth: although not everyone loves school, the joy of learning is universal.”

- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D.
- http://www.infinitethinking.org/2007/12/change-music-to-schools-and.html

- http://www.newhorizons.org/future/Creating_the_Future/crfut_csikszent.html

Idea 3: Allow students to be creative.

1. •Watch this video of Sir Ted Robinson as he speaks about creativity in schools: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66
   
   

Resources to Read:

1. •How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century
   http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568480,00.html
   
   

2. •Future School: Reshaping Learning from the Ground Up
   Alvin Toffler tells us what's wrong -- and right -- with public education.
   http://www.edutopia.org/future-school#%7C2007
   
   

3. •School’s Out - Daniel Pink
   http://www.reason.com/news/show/28174.html
   
   

4. •Framework for 21st Century Learning
   http://21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=120
   
   

5. •The enGuage 21st Century Skills
   http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skill21.htm
   
   

6. •21st Century Skills - Will Our Students Be Prepared?
   http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=15202090
   
   

7. •Are 21st Century Skills Right-Brain Skills?
   http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/columnists/johnson/johnson006.shtml
   
   

8. •Made to Stick (book)
   http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-5551332-7370518?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=made%20to%20stick&x=0&y=0
   
   
   

Videos to Watch:

1. •Top 10 Educational Videos
   http://www.langwitches.org/blog/2007/12/26/top-ten-list-for-educational-video-clips/
   
   
   

Podcasts to Listen to:

1. •THE Journal - 21st Century Skills
   http://www.thejournal.com/the/21stcenturyskills/podcast/
   
   

2. •Driving Questions (Kevin Honeycutt)
   http://web.mac.com/khoneycuttessdack/Kevin/Driving_Questions_Podcast/Driving_Questions_Podcast.html