Guerrillas in the Mist: Education and where we are headed
I promise to get off the NECC discussion- apologies to those who are sick of hearing about it.
I have been back from NECC for two weeks, and I am sifting through so many possibilities and ideas. I have wandered down many paths of links and discussions, finding blog posts from some who carried inspiration home with their tired feet and some who left feeling hollow. The consistent message from all is a passion for changing the entity we know as “education.” Everyone seems to sense that we are inside a cloud of change but none of us has the ability to see beyond it.
Analogy of the day (if you read me often, you know I talk in analogies): I live on a lake where the morning light often brings a heavy, inscrutable mist over the water. Even though there is fresh daylight reflecting off each water vapor droplet, we cannot see even as far as the end of the dock. Despite expanding light, we cannot see. Occasionally an intrepid kayaker will venture through the mist on a true voyage of discovery. If he finds another, they talk from deep within the mist, and their voices carry much farther than they realize — yet lack defined location. Under such dense cover, they can sneak up on anyone, anytime: guerrillas, seeking.
As educators create global collaboratives, web 2.0 networks for learning, and blogs about all of it, we are guerrillas in a very heavy mist. We have no idea when we will be able to see beyond the brilliantly reflective vapor droplets: the many current projects and moments of new learning. Kern Greenwood Henke interviewed NECC participants (and more) to ask them what will be there when my figurative mist burns off: “what does the future of learning look like?” I question whether any lone kayaker — or even the entire kayaking club with voices reverberating across the water — really knows.
Where will changes in the electronic media and changes in education finally go? I have guesses, but right now I am enjoying the brilliantly misty morning.
