Teach Fzx Tuesday - Interconnected

LittleBoy does not understand the internet.  He believes that different devices are intended for different tasks and we're OK with that because he's 3.

Mommy's iPod is for music and for playing AngryBirds since Tembireko turned off the WiFi antenna to limit its capacity.

The iPad is only for certain videos - this is the race scene song from Pocoyo.  It's pretty cute.

The desktop, for LittleBoy, is mainly for family pictures and music videos.  Tembireko often plays guitar while watching the original videos.  Live music in the home is wonderful and he's the drummer in the family band.

Just to confirm Tembireko's hypothesis that he believes that specific devices are for specific tasks, I asked him a series of questions:

"Can you play AngryBirds on my smart phone?"
"No."
"Can you watch music videos on the laptop?"
"No."
"Can you listen to music on the iPad?"
"Uumm, No."

You get the idea.  LittleBoy, at 3 years old, does not understand the interconnected nature of our world.  He does not get the idea that whatever is accessible from the iPad can also be had from the laptop and the desktop and the iPod - as long as Mommy turns on the WiFi antenna.

He is, however, capable of operating a mouse, closing apps and opening others, one-click purchases on Amazon, and playing whatever has an attractive picture at the end of a YouTube video.

LittleBoy can also read books...

...or at least look at the pictures and tell a story.  But he doesn't understand the Kindle App or the fact that everything published before 1923 is public domain and electronically available in various forms.

LittleBoy is hysterical and supercute and it's fine that he doesn't understand the interconnected nature of devices and our modern world of information.  It seems, however, that a similar tale can be told about many educators.  A fellow teacher recently said "My students don't know how to do anything until I tell them."  He was talking about a pretty high-level class, but it's a lie we like to tell ourselves.

Let's be realistic.  How many things could a motivated student NOT learn independently?  Very few.

The information that we deliver as teachers is readily available everywhere in various forms and we need to quit thinking like LittleBoy and struggle with the question:  "What is the place of an 'educator' in our interconnected world?"