collaboration in learning

Quoting from a post on Wikinomics from Remote Access.

1.) There are and will always be, no matter what you do, large mobs
of smarter people outside of your organization than there are inside.
From Boeing to Xerox, the book gives numerous examples of ways that
companies have developed porous boundaries, allowing them to decide
what functions are best performed in-house, while handing over others
to individuals outside the company who may be better suited to the
work.

Implication for education - first of all, wouldn’t it be great if
you could outsource some of the things in your classroom (some mindless
grading quickly pops into my mind) to someone else, so that you could
concentrate on innovation and planning in your classroom? The second
thought is that as the teacher, you are no longer the smartest person
in the room. Collaborators from across he globe can be brought in to
your classroom to mentor your students; and this is OK. As a teacher at
this time in history, I feel strongly that our jobs are only partially
about teaching. Our jobs are also about connecting. Connecting our kids
to other learners and to information. How do we develop classroom
structures and routines that both honour and utilize the possibility of
porous classroom boundaries?

As homeschoolers, we have even more freedom to outsource. There are so many brilliant resources online, in the community, at the library, etc. that can be taken advantage of at any time. As a homeschooling parent, it is not always easy to connect our kids in their *learning* with other people. But with the emergence of web 2.0 it has become so much easier than ever before! Wikipedia, blogs, forums, etc. make it easier for homeschoolers to learn from a quality social learning network than their schooled peers in a lot of ways!

2.) Customization - Google allows its employees to spend 20% of
their time on projects of their own design and development. As well, on
the other side, many online businesses allow you to truly customize
your experience, the information you receive, the look of a product you
purchase, etc. to fit your needs and your life.

Implications for education - On both sides, customizing education
could have huge implications. Imagine giving kids 20% of their day to
pursue an agenda of their own that is focused on some large issue. What
would they design? What kinds of questions could they wrestle with?
What could the come up with? Imagine the skills of independent
research, growth and learning they could attain. On the other side, the
implications for us as teachers are huge. Kids simply need custom
designed educational programs. While a nightmare for us at first
glance, there needs to be tools that allow this to happen. For us to
truly motivate and engage kids they need custom sources of information
and assessment that meet their skill level and needs.

Infinitely easier for us to carry out than a teacher with 30 students at a time. There is no one size fits all education model. Even the best approaches are effective for some and not for others. My kids spend 80% of their time on projects of their own design and development. They have developed amazing skills of independent research and learning!

Cross-posted at Rational Homeschooling