Why+Produce?

In the late '80's and more fully in the '90's, we all began to be able to access the web and read and consume what was put up on the Internet. As it has evolved, it has become full of tools which support producing and creating, NOT just consumption. Anyone can use these tools to remix content in creative ways, to curate found information, content or artifacts, or to create completely new ways of looking at information and content to add to our understanding of the world.

Today's teachers not only need to know the pedagogy of teaching and learning and figure out how to use the technology, they must continue to have [|deep understanding of the content they teach]. How do we keep up with it all? The web provides educators with information and support for the pedagogy and our professional support systems may help us know about new technologies and how to use them, but the content is growing daily, so much so that we simply may not be able to keep up with it all. Thus our questions--and the questions of our learners--become MUCH more important than the answers we sought to our multiple choice question in the past.

Students on the other hand, are using the technology to find content, to learn new content, and they are constantly using the web to remix, to curate, and to create new understandings and new content through their learning. Our kids are producing content around their passions, their interests and their knowledge. This content, these wikis, these blogs, these websites should show the depth of their knowledge and add to the understanding of our world. Our kids, after all, are showcasing themselves in what they produce. No longer are they producing just for their classroom, or for their teachers, or for their parents, but they are producing for the world.

Our students should be "[|googled well] ." Will Richardson talks about how " we need to help our students use the Web as a way of showing not just what they know but what they can do with what they know ." They are becoming very different "[|producers of information]. " As Karl Fisch says, " we should be asking them to find new questions – and then go about attempting to answer those questions in a collaborative fashion and publish their results for others to learn from ." Students today understand connectivism in ways many teachers and administrators don't. And the work they do should help them come to new understandings. It should help them make new connections between what they already know and what they are learning, to hopefully apply that knowledge to create a world that provides better opportunities and a more ecologically sound life for them and the generations to come.

my example: [|What Price This Mountain?] [|activate] [|connect] [|engage] [|remix-curate] [|synthesize-evaluate] [|synthesize-evaluate]

individual stories: [|Sarah] [|David]

And, Alan Stange's [|response to creating with wikis].