Thankfully I didn’t write this

The fact that you might be reading about PBL and even thinking about giving it a second thought is not because I might have highlighted or offered some new insight, method or use.

What is remarkable about PBL being brought to your attention is that thousands of people have been working as a collective intelligence on it, and shared some/all of their ideas and experience using digital text platforms – laptops, tablets and smartphones.

We can’t promote any one person – especially the Twitter famous – as the darling or hero of PBL (or anything else). In any form of progress, we have to admit that corporations, governments and institutions also play enabling roles. Progress is achieved because everyone has a part to play these days.

This is why technology matters in education, because it enables progress in ways which were not possible before – and gives people new parts to play. It’s also why it’s dangerous, as progress spreads like lichen on a damp wall, rather than in a neat or orderly garden tended by specialists.

The confluence of events that might have brought you here are the same as those that took me to the same doorstep. Each passing day, there are millions of words typed and posted about PBL – and some of those should be mine and yours I guess.

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