Laying down the gauntlet…

I am trying to create a learning environment worthy of my kids. That’s all.

I am working feverishly every day so that by the time my kids need more education than I can provide at home, an environment will exist that I would be proud to show to my son and daughter. For all of my hard work, though, I do not believe that it exists yet. I do not believe that a single school out there has gotten it right in terms of balancing pedagogy and technology or in terms of getting all of the right tools into the hands of the kids and asking them the right questions so that the tools actually get used.

I feel terrible about the fact that someone else’s kids have to settle for “the best we can do right now.” The fact that they can’t log in once and find all of their classes, all of their connections in their PLN, and all of their created works (or access these things at all) is shameful. All we can provide them with now is, at best, a set of tasks that will approximate a truly connected world, and at worst, a set of tasks that is simply helping to purpetuate an outdated form of education (disconnected learning).

In the interest of making promises and then keeping them, I am going to challenge myself and everyone else around me to create a learning environment that I would be proud to introduce my daughter to by the time she is of school age (3 and 1/2 years away from now). I guess I have been inspired by Obama’s moonshot rhetoric during his speach last night.

I’m not sure what the learning space looks like yet, but it is starting to take shape a little.