ICT Fluency and High Schools A Workshop Summary (2006) / Chapter Skim
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3 ICT Fluency in the 21st Century
3 ICT Fluency in the 21st Century
Pages 12-22
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From page 12... ...
Speakers at this initial session therefore discussed the big picture: what the teaching of ICT fluency must take into account in order to be realistic, motivating, and effective. They addressed the fast-changing nature of ICT and the consequent need not just to teach skills for using currently available technology but also to give students foundational understanding -- both of the underlying information science and of associated problem-solving techniques.
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From page 13... ...
Thomas Watson, as leader of IBM during the early 1950s, foresaw that the worldwide market for computers would be limited to merely six machines. "I observe," said Wulf in retrospect, "that my present car alone has more than six computers." Kenneth Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, said in 1978 -- two years before the introduction of the IBM PC -- that no one would ever want a computer in his or her home.
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From page 14... ...
"The future is not going to be just a better version of today. It is, in some profoundly transformative way, going to be different from today." Technological change has long been measured by Moore's Law, which states that a computer chip's number of transistors per unit area -- and therefore its processing power -- doubles about every 18 months.
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From page 15... ...
and informal learning, particularly for ICT. He indicated that what kids are doing outside of school -- using sophisticated technologies and learning how to access information -- is much more closely aligned to what knowledge workers do in industry than to what those kids are doing in school.
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From page 16... ...
"How I take advantage, without literally losing my mind, of an external memory that complements my internal memory is also a kind of ICT fluency." For his final metaphor, Dede referred to the multiuser virtual environments that he and his colleagues study. Many students regard these systems not just as learning environments but also as a theatre for the exploration of identity -- especially among those who have come to think of themselves as academic losers.
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From page 17... ...
So my hope is that when we gain the power, through biotechnology, not just to manipulate an external memory but also our own memory and not just a virtual identity but our own bodies, we will by then have learned enough lessons from our ICT fluency experiences to know what to do and what not to do." IT'S NOT JUST THE TECHNOLOGY Michael Eisenberg agreed with both of the presenters on the rapidity and impact of technological change that now characterize society. Consider, he said, how the World Wide Web, in just a decade, has so broadly affected our lives.
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From page 18... ...
But the basic attributes that enable people to apply ICT in complex and sustained situations, and to practice higher-level thinking in the context of ICT, will stay pretty much the same as the technology undergoes evolution or even revolution. Nevertheless, people need to stay up-to-date in order to orchestrate the laundry lists of skills, concepts, and capabilities for students' benefit.
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From page 19... ...
"We have to devote significant resources to it, and significant resources to doing it well" -- especially if we decide to put ICT skills into the high school curriculum by building it into STEM education." THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY Some of the speakers referred to this kick-off session of the workshop as "the view from 50,000 feet." Audience members, many of them educators with extensive high school teaching experience, responded in kind-and with passion. Some of these commentaries related directly to the goal of ICT fluency, but most put ICT fluency into a larger educational context or addressed even bigger big-picture issues that underlie not just ICT but virtually all of K12 education.
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From page 20... ...
He quoted Tom Friedman: "In Japan, Bill Gates is their Britney Spears. In this country, Britney Spears is our Britney Spears."3 Deborah Boisvert, director of the National Science Foundation IT Center at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, similarly stressed the need "to really challenge education to create an environment for learning." She specifically contrasted the traditionally solitary type of educational environment in the United States, one that is much less social than in many other countries.
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From page 21... ...
"Things won't change," she said, "unless we change the political climate." Jim Stanton described his work at the Southwest Regional Employment Board in Boston, Massachusetts, as "developing partnerships between some of the state's larger corporations and an array of public schools specifically around STEM programs." And in his comments he raised the issue of political will to the national level. "One of my very great concerns here is the fundamental disconnect," he said, "between what is happening in public education and what is happening in our economy, and there is an orderof-magnitude difference." Unless we redouble our efforts in the United States around STEM-career education in general and the teaching of ICT fluency in particular, said Stanton, businesses will have to look elsewhere for their workers.
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From page 22... ...
She reminded the audience that Karen's Pittman's paper (see Appendix A) for the meeting noted that roughly one-third of all teenagers in the United States do not graduate from high school (50 percent of all teens of color do not graduate)
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