Friday, American Leadership Forum and Houston A-Plus Challenge hosted a Convocation on Public Education entitled “Preparing Kids for a Future We Can’t Describe.” The keynote speaker was one David Warlick, an internationally known “futurist” whose most memorable skill seems to be mesmerizing school marms with tales of tech-savvy teenagers.
Warlick’s familiarity with tools and tricks of technology bridged us educators, who are apparently still baffled by bytes and bloggers, to our kids–who seem now to have magical powers (“invisible tentacles,” Warlick called them) that transcend space, time, and authority to create interactive, collaborative learning and socializing communities beyond our wildest imaginings.
Yet, he insisted, his presentation was not about technology, or about how to use technology in the classroom. It was about the necessary effects of technological change on our definition of what it means to be a literate and educated person. (more…)
