Time to Googlify Education?

I recently read a great article in Atlantic magazine titled “Is Google Making us Stoopid?” . The gist of the article, which you will soon be able to find on their website (www.theatlantic.com) is that the current unending flow of technology has changed how we read, and thus learn. As an example the author mentions how reading novels has become difficult due to changes in his attention span and ability to focus. All of which I easily identified with and which subsequently got me thinking.

If technology has changed how people accept information, process it and make sense of it, shouldn’t that be altering the educational process? Consider that adults can recollect differing intellectual proceese from before and after the technology explosion. If as adults we might need to consider that we now learn differently, shouldn’t we realize something similar with today’s students who have only lived in the era of Myspace, Google, and Youtube? It’s common sense really, yet the field of education has not seized upon it. Which isn’t a surprise considering that most meaningful change in education comes from politicians outside of the educational process who force feed it to administrators, teachers, and students alike. Lets face it, after NCLB the Ed World is shell-shocked and fearful of change. Making it happen on our own would be nothing short of a miracle. Yet, if we are to go forward as a nation and compete on a global scale we must re-shape education and make it more efficient and productive in its efforts to create a workforce that is second to none. And we must do it from within.

I’ve written in this space before about Cyber Schools and On-line Education ( The Next Wave). I myself, as a public school teacher and Cyber Academy Coordinator, can see the viable nature of this educational alternative. My gut feeling is that we will be seeing more and more of cyber education until we won’t consider it alternative, but part of the mainstream. This is par for the course in regards to change. Lately I’ve been thinking that the way to reach today’s learners (who we can agree learn differently than we did as students) is through a blended approach configured of both brick and mortar learning and cyber learning as well. It offers the best of both models, builds skills necessary to compete globally, and just might offer curriculum in a way that today’s learners can latch on to and process effectively. Don’t be surprised if and when this educational model becomes more and more familiar. Just consider it the Googlifying of Education.