Why Schoolwork Doesn't Have to Suck: Learning 2.0

Calm down, you puritans out there scandalized by the title. I use the word "suck" advisedly because, as a teacher, it's the verb I hear most students use when describing their feelings about the work their schools make them perform in too many classes (not all, mind you - not all. There are many good teachers out there).

And I want this quick post to highlight an issue that parents should be attuned to, but probably aren't: the use of the internet for learning. If your child's schooling - their classroom, their homework, their textbooks, their major assignments - looks like it did when you were in school, then dear parent, you may have a problem: your children are being given an education that will help them succeed in a bygone age: the 20th century.

If your answer is, "No, my kids use the internet to find information for their essays," you might still have a problem: especially if those essays are typed on Word and printed for hand-in to the teacher. Yes, using the web to locate information is a skill you should be glad to see teachers encouraging for your kids, but I'm sorry to break it to you: It's still 20th century - what edugeeks call "Web 1.0."

Under the "Web 1.0" regime, the web was mostly static websites, still authorial and authoritarian, delivering information in the same one-directional way that paper textbooks do. You couldn't contest the information, challenge it, critique it, refute it. The website was "teacher."

The revolution of "Web 2.0" has changed all of that. Now the reader has the power to negotiate meaning with the author, to add to the author's writing on the author's page (it's called a "comment thread," obviously), and to engage with other readers about the author's ideas in that thread as well. Truth Authority is much more slippery now, and socially negotiated.

"Unsuckier" still for today's students: thanks to Web 2.0 and the self-publishing (often multimedia) revolution, the very essay itself is losing its privileged place as the standard by which academic merit is judged. Special needs students, or students more skillful as speakers or artists or musicians or filmmakers than as writers, should be given more chances to demonstrate their mastery of content and critical thinking about it in whatever mode of expression suits their strength: a podcast for natural speakers, for example; an mp3 original song from the musicians; a photo-essay on Flickr; a short movie, a cartoon, paintings and sketches, and such for the visually intelligent.

In an age when more people read online than off, and when online "reading" more and more often takes the form of non-textual (non-written) communication, all of these non-verbal communication arts gain in importance for the students' future. This is not to say that writing is not important; it is. But to grade students based primarily on their writing skills for their report cards is arguably a piece of academic prejudice ready for the dust-heap. Muhammad Ali couldn't write to save his life, and was a D- student in high school - yet his words, when spoken, shook the world. Imagine if he could have recorded himself speaking about his subjects of study in school, and been graded based on the skills involved in that (which he had in spades), and you're imagining an Ali with a more accurate - and more just - G.P.A.

How else does Web 2.0 offer "unsuckiness" in the classroom? Watch the (admittedly semi-sucky) screencast below to see an overview of some stuff I was lucky enough to do in my school - a "1 to 1" laptop school in which all students brought Apple Macbooks to class each day (and took home each night). That reform allowed them to create their history textbooks online on a wiki, to reflect on what the history meant to them on blogs (in which they argued in comment threads), to write short stories with peer editors from other countries using another wiki, on and on.

I've got to dash - I'm still in Bangkok, and due at a meeting in a few minutes - but I want to close with this: we've been talking about students with special needs a bit lately, and I'm convinced that some students fitting that category would find school less of a challenge if they were allowed to choose a mode of assessment more aligned to their strengths, and less aligned with the traditional reading-and-writing tests.

And beyond that, I know by experience that a vastly larger percentage of students, when describing digital learning that allows them to use the tools they use outside the school cell - computers, cellphones, digital cameras, so much more - tend to choose verbs much more positive than "sucks."

So parents, give your schools hell - on second thought, first request nicely - if they're ignoring these tools. And count your blessings for this much, at least: it seems Obama understands Learning 2.0 somewhat, and plans to wire our schools for the 21st century at long last.

Image by Wes Fryer at Learning at the Speed of Creativity