From the “What the Heck Does That Mean?” Department:

This cannot be good.

Leave it to Lessig to set up his own Echo Anti-Chamber. Shouldn’t we all have one of these?

The aim of this page is to build a collection of content that criticizes my work. I’ve mapped the chapters of Free Culture, but feel free to add any other work you’d like. Also, if there is stuff that adds support, of course that can be added. But please keep it separate from the criticism. My aim is to create a simple source for “the other side of the story.”

Ok…I know…I worship the man. But you have to admit, the guy just gets it…

Remember “The Jerk“? The scene where Steve Martin finds his name in the new phone book and yells “I’m somebody!”?

Well, here’s my “Jerk” moment. I just got this e-mail from Amazon:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased “The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog” by Rebecca Blood also purchased books by Will Richardson. For this reason, you might like to know that Will Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” will be released soon. You can pre-order your copy by following the link below.

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
Will Richardson
List Price : $61.95
Price : $61.95

To learn more about Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, please visit the following page at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/
1412927668/ref=pe_snp_668

Sincerely,

Amazon.com

Talk about surreal. Now if only they had gotten the price right…

It occurred to me as I was listening to David yesterday that not only is this the first time in a long time (maybe ever) that we don’t have a real clear picture of what your kids’ futures look like (from a professional standpoint), this may also be the first time in history that our kids bring serious knowledge to the classroom that their teachers don’t have. And I mean that on a couple of levels.

First, from a technology standpoint, there is no question that most (not all) kids are more comfortable and facile with computers and the Read/Write tools than most (not all) teachers are. What that sets up is an opportunity for teachers to let their students teach, not only the teacher but each other as well.

Second, one of the most significant changes in the classroom today is the fact that teachers (or schools) no longer know most (not all) of the relevant sources of information for the topics that they teach. Think about it…when I was in high school, I doubt that I used too many sources for my research and my work that my teachers didn’t have knowledge of or at least had a clear understanding of. Today, that’s no longer the case. I hear teachers all the time relate the fact that they are “scrambling” to keep up with both the types of sources and the sources themselves that their students are using. Again, I think this is an opportunity for teachers to learn from their students in some meaningful ways.

What this means is that we need to start looking at our students more as resources instead of recepticles. We need to be able to let go of some of those traditional roles and, as David so rightly said yesterday, focus more on teaching and showing students how to manage their own learning. We need to push our kids to go beyond our curriculum and help us expand our classrooms because, let’s face it, they can now.

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