April+2014

April 17, 2014. Awakening Possibilities: [|The MTS Conference on Technology]
Over the past two days I have had a chance to hear [|Kathy Cassidy], [|Steve Dembo], [|Dean Shareski], [|Phil McRae] and [|Chris Lehmann] speak under one roof, and pretty much in my own back yard. The full list of speakers is much longer, including many other well known educational thinkers from home and away. Hats off to the Manitoba Teacher's Society for pulling together such a high quality conference.

I like the conference title that MTS chose this year: Awakening Possibilities. It sort of suggests that possibilities were always there, but that they were asleep, or that maybe we were asleep. Waking up to new ideas is a neat idea, it seems somehow as natural and expected as the dawning of a new day. Too often we think about idea generation, divergent thinking and creativity as processes that produce ideas completely out of nothing, in some sort of an "ex nihilo" way. More often than not, new ideas arise out of old ideas, or recombinations of current ideas, and so we wake up to the possibilities that seem to have been there all along. We have that fresh and waking moment of realization and discovery.

Very little in Ed-Tech and Tech-Pedagogy is completly new, but I think the comfort level of teachers is growing, and that seems new. Maybe we're waking up to the possibility that learning is changing, and the systems designed to promote learning are changing as well. Phil McCrae's talk on the future of education reminded me that we are living in exponential times. Exponential growth in knowledge, information technology, and in world population as well. Here in Canada we live in a culture that values (demands?) choice, personalization, and flexibility. Phil provided the flip-side to these highly individualized values. While choice matters, so does equity. Personalization is great, but not at the expense of community. Flexibility matters, but we can't forget about responsibility. Equity, community, and responsibility need to be carried forward as we swim in a culture focussed upon choice, personalization, and flexibility.

Of course, these are old ideas, so maybe we are just awakening to the new ways that we have to think about equity, community, and responsibility. Certainly this conference is filled with people committed to doing right by children and by parents, but "doing right" seems to be a moving target in this highly fluid time. The Ignite sessions on Wednesday night provided good examples of social justice and equity issues working their (rightful) way into a conference that is mostly about technology.

Then again, maybe waking to the possibilities is more akin to waking up on a Monday morning, knowing that you have to get back at it, and that the work week ahead will be filled with challenges. Not all challenges are pleasant. As we awaken to the possibilities about how educational technology can enhance the learning and development of students there will be challenges, and we might wish for just a little more time to sleep.

Here in Manitoba the time has come to wake up, to stretch a bit, to look around, and to figure out where to go from here. Certainly education systems are under new pressures and need to change. Figuring out how to move from possibilities to probabilities to realities is the challenge of everyone involved in education.