James Gee in 2004 (think birth of much of the things people are currently excited about) said “Unfortunately, our schools are still locked in endless and pointless battles between “traditionalism” and “progressivism,” between lecture-style teaching and immersion learning, as if these were the only two alternatives.” He was talking about games and immersion while future-billionaires were hacking out what has become the ‘social media channel’.
Sadly, he seems to continue to be right. A quick sweep around the conference ‘scene’ and a read though the offerings at large events such as ISTE presents the same names, faces and collectives that seem to be entirely satisfied with the situation. And why not, if the marketing people are right – and Charlie Sheen is a killer-digital-brand … then I’m not sure I want to participate.
It seems quite clear that there are buzz worlds and topics that are optimised to market places. While it’s okay to attack IWBs wholesale, it seems to me that there are a lot of people as resilient to move past Web2.0 as the people they are attacking and no different. It seems we’re dead set of keeping this battle alive and well and targeting the low hanging fruit. And why not – it’s a multi-million dollar industry these days.
This is great news if you’re organising your consultancy calendar I guess, but I think I’ll try to head to New Orleans – hang out with the Librarians. Leave the snake-oil sellers to it. I actually want to learn something.
Playable 