The Informational Divide

Time to upgrade?

We live in the information era. With the advent of multiple devises of Internet connectivity, and the saturation of social media, we are in a time where nobody can be a dummy any more. The answers, ideas, or information required is often just a few taps away. I feel this is becoming very evident in education.

Teaching is changing. Staff rooms resound with talk of 21st century learning ( or blended learning, or personalised learning, or e-learning, or digital learning, or passion projects, etc). Even the language of education is changing. How does everyone keep up?

You have to be connected!

It's becoming quite simply a must do. Teachers who want to be in the know, who want to keep moving and developing, need to be in the know. And the easiest way to get in the know - get connected.

Whether your knowledge funnel is twitter, Facebook, the VLN, your schools Ning, Pinterest, Tumblr, or any of the other masses of feeds where people are talking - educators need to think seriously about connecting to one. Pick the education topics that interest you, and follow. It may mean a few extra emails a week - but for the extra 10 minutes it takes to flick through them, and follow up or discard, you will always find a gem. A little snippet of information, an idea, a comment that lights something inside for you, or helps you to understand what Mr S was talking about in the staff room.

We have spoken for years about the digital divide between the digital natives and the digital dinosaurs, but now it's more than that. The divide used to be about use of devices and confidence with them, now it's becoming a divide in knowledge around how education is changing with the devices.

How do we support those teachers who are starting to feel like they don't speak the language of education anymore? Who are feeling overwhelmed with expectations beyond their knowledge. 

Everyone around them is moving faster and faster... We need to try and get them on board... Get them connected.

I'd love to know if anyone has any ideas around a great feed, that would work for this. Like a beginners  forum in the VLN.