Today on the front page of the New York Times there are two stories about education: one about approaches various Democratic supporters are pushing; one about Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’ campaign to preserve No Child Left Behind. There is nothing new for education proposed from either camp! The drawing of the baby suckling the mobile is on the same New York Times front page, with an article headlined: “So Young, and So Gadgeted.” While our toddlers grab onto their networked future lives, politicians bicker over their tinkering with the past sort of education.
If I were a candidate for office, this is what I would propose:
No more pencils, no textbooks, no more searching gobbledygook.
The policy that little rhyme sets out is 3 major steps, to be accomplished in 3 years. Too much too soon? I don’t think so. Let’s start at least talking about moving education into the future so it will be ready for babies the age of the one in the drawing. I propose that candidates for elective office support this 3-part Education Policy:
“No more pencils refers to the basic device a student uses to work with educational resources. The first major new education policy is to provide every student and every teacher with his or her own mobile device for interacting with the Net and, as support for the devices, to provide free wireless connectivity at all schools, libraries, and other learning environments. Children can use pencils to draw, and we will teach them handwriting. But the priority will be to get a mobile device into their hands to use for learning.
“No textbooks, is quite literal here. All educational resources will become digital and open online within three years. Printed textbooks will be removed from all schools from preschool through college. The purchase and use of printed resources of any kind will no longer be authorized or funded for educational systems. At first these materials will be replicated online for free, open access. Over time the open educational resources that are the core of the new learning will be improved to become network-native, taking advantage of network platform techniques for enhancing interfacing, connectivity, and context. They will all remain open and free to use for anyone connected to the Net.
No more searching gobbledygook means the frustrations and misperceptions of searching quality materials online will be cleared away as education teaches itself how to implement findability and networked learning. I know that searching gobbledygook may seem like a strange phrase, but that is exactly why I used it. The online world—and discussions about it—have been pretty much gobbledgook so far as education is concerned since the Internet first came along. We need to understand and take advantage of the vast online knowledge resources our kids could be using, and to optimize them so they are finable in context.
