Everything is Miscellaneous in Education: Part 1

Author David Weinberger, in his book Everything Is Miscellaneous, asks, “Suppose that now, for the first time in history, we are able to arrange our concepts without the silent limitations of the physical. How might our ideas, organization, and knowledge itself change? " This book is superb. It has kept me up a night thinking about the implications for education.

Some characteristics of the digital world are…

“…in the digital world everything is only a few clicks away.”
Or as Tom Peters would say, “Distance is dead.”  Students can use the web to instantly reach out to any part of the planet to talk with people, or find information on anything that interests them, or collaborate on projects. They can work with the person at the desk next to them or a student on the other side of the globe. Information, once warehoused in libraries, is now a few clicks away.

“Instead of being the same way for all people, it can instantly rearrange itself for each person and each person’s current task.”
It is not possible to differentiate instruction and learning to the level that is possible when a student does it for their self. The web will make it (makes it) possible to match a student with his or her interest and ability far easier than one teacher alone could. Each click brings the student just what they need in the way they need it. Learning that is truly customized and differentiated on demand. The digital world will bend to your needs when you want it, where you want it, and how you want it. That is the future of education!

“Instead of being limited by space and operational simplicity in the number of items it can stock, the digital world can include every item and variation…”
The digital world will provide a near infinite number of resources and combinations of resources that the physical realm of the school or classroom cannot provide. These digital resources can do what no classroom resources can do. They can remain current, right up to the minute. They can be interactive and participatory. They can be easily edited, modified, and shared. They take up no space. They can be replaced with something better or different with a click. What textbook can do that?

“…they (items) can be classified in every different category in which users might conceivably expect to find them.”
Infinite subjects unbounded by budget, space, and availability, combined in infinite ways. Unmatched variety. Best of all, the digital world avails it self to being searched unlike the physical world. In the physical world you have to know exactly what you are looking for. In the digital world you search or stumble across what you are looking for because there are so many ways to find it. For example a student working in social studies can use the index of his or her book or look a shelf of books in the library. But, the same student can search the digital way using tags that come to his or her mind. Students can search by Egypt, ancient history, pharaohs, the Nile, ancient Africa, the pyramids, etc.

“Instead of living in the neat, ordered shelves…items can be jumbled digitally and sorted out only when and how a user wants to look for them.”
The digital world allows a student access to virtually unlimited amounts of resources that can be discovered any way the student chooses to think about the subject. Going back to the social studies example, a student can search for pyramids when thinking about ancient Egypt, but the same student can search pyramids when thinking about architecture, or geometric shapes. It is all how the student chooses to approach the subject and the digital world allows them to access resources though multiple routes.

Teachers, does this align with your educational model? We have some thinking to do.