Hintonblogger

The New Story presentation that David Warlick is sharing is compelling, but it seems there must be some intermediary steps in order to get there.

One of the best examples is that the road to the New Story about education has to accommodate some of the institutionalized aspects of Industrialized education, at least initially. So the question is how we can begin the new story in education, defined by flexibility, communication and collaboration, and authentic learning while the social limits brought by our industrial society.

Here are some examples of what I mean.

School Day
The rigidity of the school day has long been based on the bell structure originated in industrial factories. How can we accommodate the fact that schools must take care of children during the work day, while breaking from the rigid structure that seems inconsistent with the flexibility required by the information society we are transforming into.

Funding Models

Another example is the fact the funding is traditionally driven by daily attendance rates (how do you measure attendance in online schooling?)?

One of my biggest problems with the New Story and other models of the new type of learning processes we see emerging today is the role of the teacher. When a teacher no longer has the authority as the "fount" of knowledge in the classroom, what maintains the order? I agree that we need to help get out of the way of the learning process some times, but I don't believe in the idea that when left to themselves kids will just learn (the Lord of the Flies comes to mind). I guess what I'm saying is that the New Story can be uncomfortable even as it is exciting, I think that is a good thing. Here are my questions about this New Story:

Questions about the New Story

What role in this new story do teachers take? What is their value?
What does the student-teacher interaction look like?

There are other questions too, but will leave those for another day. I can see I'm going to have to spend some more time on David's New Story wiki to get a better look of his ideas on all of this:)