At the FETC 2013 Conference, I attended a session by Adam Bellow, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future. I've attended his sessions before on a virtual conference and was extremely impressed by his forward thinking about education. In this session he used many pictures to share his perspective on where education is now and his philosophy of where it needs to be.
It was draw dropping to learn that 7,200 kids drop out of school every day, meaning 1.3 million drop out of school every year. He attributes some of this to education being systematic, ignoring the individual educational needs of every child. Standardized tests have turned children into testing zombies, when life is not prep for a test.
He stressed the importance of using social media and digital tools to do something different in education, while addressing the fear with using social media. He shared how social networks do exist, and they are what we make of them. They can be used for collaboration.
He prescribed changes for education including: (1) finding the safety and power in numbers (social networking), (2) empower students with project based learning and infusing pop culture into lessons (talk less and do more, (3) make it a goal to invigorate students by giving them a sense of wonder, and (4) collaborate with 21st century skills (trust the kids....they trust you). There were many other ideas that came so fast that I missed taking notes on them. All together, his message was awe-invoking and inspirational.
He really encouraged teachers to "be infectious".
To catch his presentation, follow this link http://bit.ly/FunnyThing2013
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