Marc Prensky in Middlesbrough

Marc's keynote at the Middlesbrough ICT Conference at the famous Riverside Stadium today struck so many chords they resonated all over the building. Teachers listened to an impassioned invective to act now rather than later in embracing all that is good in technological development. Marc urged the group to take risks and do it with passion. To embrace change and make change work.

In the opening of his Keynote Marc may have announced the end of such 'stand up and lecture' sessions (at least for him). He explained how he had been challenged about not moving onwards in terms of still being out there at the front talking 'at' rather than opening a dialogue 'with' his audience. He tried to involve the teachers in taking sides to some of his questions but it was hard work. The practitioners in the audience were in 'conference' mode and their expectation was that they would sit and listen ... not participate. It was their expectation. The question is ... 'How do we change the expectation?' ... and is this how it is in classrooms ?... Do students/children get what they expect? Are they learning in a way they recognise and are they comfortable with it? I think the answer is a resounding 'NO'. We can change expectation ... we can do things differently but if we do we must make sure that differently = better.

Earlier this week I did a very enjoyable and similar keynote for a group of Headteacher with a similar result. The body language of the audience was excellent as a reflection of the things I was saying and the 'post keynote' comments were enlightened and positive. Expectation delivered and received. But Marc made me think.

If we are saying 'shift happens' and change is getting to be exponential then why are we presenting in the same way as we did (okay we have projectors now) fifty years or more ago. How can we get messages ove more effectively? Or is this the best way? It is the comfort range of the audience and does give new ideas and provoke thought. But is this good enough?

Marc will have made some think about the appropriateness of style and the divergence from the one size fits all scenario and his hope was, I believe, that these thoughts should be taken back and embedded into classroom practice.

I hope in the next few days to have a link here to the presentation so you can read for yourself what he said.