Friday, March 14, 2003

Using "Inspiration", templates for MSWord, and other software which McLuhanites would refer to as "extensions of the senses," in this case the memory and whatever the mysterious creative process of brainstorming entails, Hollywood scriptwriters are abandoning the yellow legal pad. The writer Roger S. H. Schulman (Shrek)doesn't collaborate but notes that if he did, he would use e-collaboration software. This isn't technology "intertwined" with a field, it is technology transforming a traditional work process. As such, it is one of the key shifts that educators need to make. "Ontogeny does not recapitulate phylogeny" in education. Students don't need to pass through the stages of learning that their teachers did. They want to jump into learning, and as they work, it is the teacher's job to help them perfect their skills to hone their work into a better and better product. Learning is an iterative, fluid thing now. It isn't something stored up to be recited, it is doing. Learning is the labor of our century. It is difficult because it means that educators need to start working in new ways and that can be harder than simply keeping up with the latest new idea. It means being able to track, analyze, and report back on the latest idea in a connected, dynamic, digital way. The idea that career or professional skills are learned in a process whereby "Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny" and each learner develops by passing through abbreviated stages that replicate the developmental stages of how the teacher learned is not true for today's learners. They need to given problems, and to learn skills as they move to solve the larger problem. To try and breakdown learning to present skills to them in a stepwise fashion, as if information isn't out there, all the time, available 24/7 at their fingertips seems slow and hackneyed to them. Dialogue Box, Hollywood Version

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