What’s all this 2.0 about?

January 19, 2009

A lot of the time I am asked what it is that I do, what my website title “Teacher 2.0” means, and what the hell is Web 2.0? I can’t sit here and give you a complete answer to all of this, and just running a Google search on these terms will give you thousands of sites. People way smarter than me have tried to answer this question (think Michael Wesch or Henry Jenkins), and I am not about to try to give you a complete answer but here are some thoughts. I am one man, and the first thing you need to know about Web 2.0 is that it requires a collective intelligence, which is a synthesis of minds from all around the world thinking, writing, discussing, editing, and rethinking. I am one mind.

The future of education in technology is a virtual, non-corporeal space outside the walls of the traditional classroom. An organic, paperless global space of bits and bytes far from limited walls, limited censors, limited minds, limited cultures where the censor of knowledge doesn’t exist. Knowledge can’t be chunked into school periods from discipline to discipline. Learning has to be organic, asynchronous and synchronous simultaneously. Students should take classes based on needs and interests rather than someone dictating their learning based on what they need in order to get a piece of paper. Locale is no longer important. You could be in the same class when ANYONE demographically. ANYONE, and you would not know them physically. That doesn’t matter now. Avatars represent people however they want to be represented. Individuals CHOOSE who and what they are. They CHOOSE how they learn, what they learn. Learning now needs to be equally accessible and cross-disciplinary with the knowledge of experts who team teach what they know. Educators need to be moderators, facilitators who are flexible within their specific tool sets, and understand that we, as educators, are learners, too. We learn from our students as much as they learn from us.

Teachers are limited by (some) administrators who have been ingrained with the sorts of curriculum coming out of the late 80s, and IT departments who fear their jobs and the security of what we want them to do (Note: If you’re in IT and reading this blog, you’re obviously not that kind of IT person.) In our districts we need continuity and access. When I was in Tempe Union High School District I was given a laptop and administrator access to that computer. When I came to work I plugged it into the network and that was that. In my current district I have no legal access to mostly anything, although when I got this job we technically weren’t even allowed to use USB drives in the computers. No matter how innovative my district is, they limit us and our students. We need more access and trust. We’re not going to break anything. Teachers need symposiums on a yearly basis, where faculty can showcase their technology uses from their classes. Administrators, district and officials need to attend. Learn from Teacher 2.0 and give us flexibility and freedom to create the ideal classroom 2.0 for our 2.0 students. And what is this concept of Student 2.0 or Classroom 2.0?

Well, first of all let me be clear that we cannot have a 2.0 classroom run by 1.0 teachers. I am Teacher 2.0. If you’re here you are, too. Or at least, if you’ve read this far, you at least care enough to maybe want to be. One of the biggest concepts to review is HOW students are taught. We can no longer allow teaching in get in the way of learning. Our schools need to foster the culture that matches the tech innovations of the 21st century, and stop the teacher-centered dichotomy of the last century. School 2.0 infuses the learner-centered concept and every level, and these students are real people with minds learning and teaching teachers –not just statistics, numbers, and state funding. We need to change every thing.

Teacher 2.0 needs to move beyond Classroom 1.0, and I realize that this concept of Classroom 2.0 is relatively ambiguous (but aren’t all concepts at first?) We need MEANING in learning. If the curriculum isn’t meaningful, then forget it. We can’t teach to a set of “standards” from those who don’t know. My colleague’s on a review board of the AZ Language Arts standards, and I trust her, but she’s one person. And she’s not Teacher 2.0. Maybe don’t look for experienced teachers (those who’ve been in education for years). Pick up some people who think outside the traditional brick and mortar segmented cubicled classrooms of compartmentalized education.

Teacher 2.0 needs to rethink what it means to teach. Classroom 1.0 does not teach our students. Classroom 2.0 is learner-centered learning, and, frankly, our schools aren’t. We, Teacher 2.0, cannot adopt the awful practices of Classroom 1.0. We cannot adapt Classroom 1.0. We must begin fresh. No longer can the curriculum dictate the learning. Student 2.0 needs to negotiate their learning, while their 2.0 teacher should be facilitator. Teachers are NOT the keeper of the knowledge, and we as Teacher 2.0 need to know that learning is everywhere –not just online or offline. Everywhere. Effective learning is satisfactory and Student 2.0 is excited over the meaning of knowledge and the expertise of gaining new skill sets. Teacher 2.0 understands the concept of collaborative learning and collective intelligence instead of Classroom 1.0’s emphasis on standardized individual testing.

In Classroom 2.0 students are excited about making meaning from new learning and negotiating a community of learners. Student 2.0 learns to learn rather than being dictated that the textbook learning is holy writ. They negotiate their learning as equals with Teacher 2.0, who does not set fixed curriculum finalized by arbitrary testing. They negotiate the subjects, their education, their scholarship. Without meaning and with forced unexplaination by Teacher 1.0, Student 2.0 festers in their rowed seats.

The 21st century skills initiative calls for the preparation of Student 2.0 for the global economy. Synchronous and asynchronous relationships need to occur between the global 2.0 student whose Teacher 2.0 teaches them to navigate and evaluate the petabytes of information available to them worldwide. We need to prepare them to contribute to the global collective intelligence through an evaluation and contribution to multi-modal multi-media video, audio, textual, and image information which they then consume, rework, and regurgitate for another skill sets consumption. Student 2.0 needs to be innovative global thinkers who are provided with opportunities to tackle and challenge their world communities.

From my syntactical structure above my flip-flop of responsibility is purposeful because Classroom 2.0 is not a traditional space where we, as teachers, enter our classrooms in the summer to prepare OUR classroom. Friends, this is NOT OUR CLASSROOM. The classroom does not belong to the teacher. The classroom space belongs to all of us. You AND your students. They are Student 2.0. They NEED Classroom 2.0. Are you Teacher 1.0 or are YOU Teacher 2.0?

Some of the thoughts above were adapted, in part, from Albert Ip (2006) and Liz B. Davis (2008).

Posted in online, student2.0, teacher2.0, technology, web2.0