This is a thought provoking post that asks a great question while raising many others. I suspect that we need multiple “hooks”. The most compelling hook for me is a response to the sad fact that education as we’ve known it has been failing far too many learners.

Traditionally, in order to do well in school, an individual has needed strong “academic skills”–the ability to process words that come from the front of a room, an strong aptitude for interacting with the printed word, and proficiency in taking tests. This may over-simplify it a bit, but it’s pretty clear that very few do well in school without these skills.

Part of the problem is that it is only a relatively small elite who have strong academic skills, and educators are drawn largely from this elite. There have always been way too many otherwise smart people who fail in school because they learn differently. We as teachers have difficulty responding to learners with other learning strengths because it is hard for us to identify with them.

Current research suggests that ALL learners, including those with strong academic skills, benefit from the kinds of approaches that have been long been used in special education–emphasis on visual supports, multi-modal re-enforcement of learning, alternative ways for students to show their learning, etc. It’s worth checking out the work on universal design for learning by CAST at Harvard. I think every educator should read their book “Teaching Every Learner in the Digital Age”, which is available in its entirety online.

Advances in technology, mean that we now have ways of better engaging learners across the learning-style continuum. We also have wonderful new ways for learners to demonstrate their learning. This is why I love the many new options for digital storytelling.

So, I believe that one potential “hook” is to emphasize that with the new digital tools that are available, especially those springing to “life” on the web, we can enhance and facilitate learning for ALL learners–for academic stars as well as for many others who have been less successful with our more traditional approaches.

Speaking personally, if you are going to lace adverts as comments then please take the time to ensure that you don’t cause offence in doing so.

Please note, I am speaking entirely on my own behalf and have no idea whether anyone else agrees with my opinion!

Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! http://www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html

There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
http://www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html

We have been saying this for a while, and I most recently heard it from Alan November, but the revolution is not technological, but rather informational. What separates this generation and the modes we will use to prepare them is their access to answers, and thus to better questions.

Our role, as you and many others have pointed out, becomes less about what we can fill their heads with, and more about what we can show them how to process and create anew. The “democratization of information” and the flattening concepts that Friedman wrote about change their relationship to the information and to the world, and I think this is what really causes Prensky’s phrase to be outdated. We are all feeling our way around the mass of information, regardless of age.