AECT Keynote: John Couch, VP for Apple Education
I wanted to try and get this out yesterday, but had a busy, fun day! Too much fun stuff going on, and didn’t get around to filling out my notes. As it is, this is still largely in note form because I’m still thinking about what Mr. Couch said, and what it might mean for my work.
John Couch is the vice-president for Education at Apple computer. I thought it was excellent that AECT was able to get him to come and speak to us. His presentation largely sounded like a “buy a Mac” commercial, but what else would you expect? Still, he had some interesting points about how the nature of education is changing—or needs to.
The first thing he said that I thought was interesting is that he went to a university that let him design his own major, which was a mix of engineering, design, and something else. I wonder, though he did this a long time ago, if this might be a trend of the future, as online learning increases. People won’t be locked into particular majors and universities, and might be able to put together a course load involving courses from multiple subjects from multiple institutions. But how will we know that they have received “enough” of whatever they “need” to be “qualified?” And that’s an issue of online certification and standards, but that’s another issue …
A lot of Mr. Couch’s presentation was about providing tools that empower students to learn. So rather than limit students by what a teacher knows, or what is available in one place, they are empowered to learn without these traditional boundaries.
He began by discussing the digital natives/digital immigration theories, which are very intuitive, and I believe them to some degree myself (although not completely), but I wish I could see some research supporting these ideas because they are sure thrown around a lot!
He then discussed the traditional model of information acquisition, and that technology allows for new, more effective models of learning more appropriate for digital natives and information creators (rather than simply knowledge consumers). This made me wonder that if technology is creating a generation of digital natives who are “wired” differently and learn differently, than technology is, in fact, driving educational change and learning change, despite our efforts to make change based on theory and research. So despite our argument that technology does not drive learning, maybe it does! However, we still need to base our teaching on theory and research, but our research and theory needs to adapt as students (maybe) are adapting and changing.
A favorite comment that he made is that you never should send a digital native to their room because they are connected and connect to the world through their room. That’s not punishing them by isolating them! I’ll have to remember that with my kids ☺.
He then asked the question, “How do we provide the same functionality they have in their social environments at school? So they can connect and produce rather than receive? They want to exhibit their knowledge in the same media-rich environment that they are absorping” He also said, “To them, the knowledge is not about accumulation but about transformation.”
He then discussed content creation (iLife) and content distribution (iTunes, garageband and podcasting). This is where the Apple advertising was laid on a little thick, but that’s to be expected.
Interestingly, he showed that googling the word “podcast” returned 28 hits in September of 2004, but 611,000,000 on September 8, 2006. This includes 6,000 free education podcasts (at least). In this way, the mp3 player is becoming a mobile learning device, he claims.
This was where I felt like he undermined his own argument against the knowledge acquisition model by arguing for more information transmission through mp3 players. However, what I think he was trying to say is that students can access information outside of the classroom now, and they are no longer limited by the teacher’s knowledge. Thus, they are empowered. He then discussed how students can be information creators through iLife tools. He finished by quoting, “THE WAY WE DEFINE OUR SCHOOLS TODAY WILL DEFINE OUR SCHOOLS TOMORROW”
Overall, I thought the presentation was interesting, except for the blatant Apple advertising. I like his ideas, which tie into much of the read/write web literature and argument, which basically states that learners are different now, and they are forced to “power-down” for school. The tools are available to empower students to learn by creating, which is a powerful learning theory and model called Constructionism. Now we just need to effectuate the systemic change so that schools allow students to use these empowering tools to construct their learning.
I like those ideas. They taste good. 
technorati tags:AECT2006, AECT, apple, education, digital, native, change
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