After reading the article in the other forum and taking a look at the website, I would predict that Dr Zhao would describe technology and education as fraught with challenges and opportunity – a “wicked” problem.

He might also contrast Chinese and American schools as some of his work seems focused on that topic.

That is, Dr. Zhao sees a world that comprises global classrooms from multiple Nations in real time using online educational technology. From my work experience in China, I surmise that China is still nascent in implementing online educational technology in its curricula across the board. However, Dr. Zhao envisions a paradigm shift and an institution of global classrooms (from K12 to adult learners) that comprises learners from all corners of the world and, at the same time, pursuing courses in an asynchronous classroom environment. For instance, a global classroom environment can asynchronously have a student from China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, India and so on learning in a global classroom in real time.

I found this statement interesting too, and didn’t exactly know what to make of it when he said it. I think what he is referring to is the tendency of technology functionality to enforce pre-existing notions of what schools look like and how they function.

So if we imagine drill and practice as a modality we reinforce that with technology. What I also found interesting was the almost negative connotation associated with teaching and learning, which I haven’t heard before. However, I think in context, what he is saying is we need to look holistically at education and it’s goals. For example he questions whether getting into college is a valid goal. This may be accomplished by teaching and learning, but need not necessarily define education

What is more, he sees today’s educational technology as circular, wherein, he opines that we keep doing the same things repeatedly.
From my understanding, Dr. Zhao is criticizing the teacher for not doing enough with educational technology in the classroom. That is, the teacher is not leaning forward with being creative and innovative with the educational technologies of the 21st century. So, teachers, according to Dr. Zhao, are breeding a class of basement college graduates destined to be middle class citizens and, unfortunately, working in capacities of which they did not study in college. Thus, we need teachers to be fearless of educational technologies and to also explore in creative and innovative ways of using educational technologies of the 21st century.

This section really spoke to me because I had the same experience on graduating form undergrad. I went to school for TV and film and moved to LA thinking I would be ok finding work and be able to join a union where the pay was pretty decent as an editor.

However, at that time in 2008, shifts in technology had made the need for assistant editors less prominent. Editing has essentially became easier to do requiring less people to accomplish. This was quite a exciting development to the side of me that wanted to make documentaries and could do so myself, but no so great for finding work. This combined with the economy in 2008 led to me staying at Trader Joes long after I graduated, freelancing and not finding steady work in post until much later.

In this case the tools taught in college were relevant, but the technology had advanced eliminating, essentially automating, many editing tasks. This has continued to the point that I finally left the field – for the better, gladly.

This poses a challenge for educators, to incorporate tools that are relevant but also to be aware of where an industry is and where it is going. If I had been aware of the state of the industry beforehand I likely would have picked a different major. No one has a crystal ball, and I value the experience I had working in film, but the degree was not of excessive use. In contrast, the master I finished a few years ago changed my life for the better almost immediately. The skills and technologies I learned were relevant and employable in the field.

Surely, teachers will be around forever, according to Dr. Zhao, but there is a danger if teachers do not keep up with the technological innovations and creations of the 21st century.

For instance, it can be argued that there has been a shift from information technology to digitization over the past few years. Alongside digitization is cloud computing, which is the latest state of the art in computer developing and coding. For instance, for teachers to learn and understand digitization and cloud computing, training is a sufficient and necessary requirement. That is, technology changes so drastically in that it is constructed as we go along. So, for teachers to produce knowledge creators in the future, teachers themselves must become innovators and knowledge creators. Teachers must set the example through cognition, certification, and training.

I teach a class in the Educational Multimedia program at Cal Poly. In this program there are many K-12 teachers and nearly all the assignments are project-based and very loosely structured. There are also courses in graphic design and video editing.

This allows the graduate students in the program to be very free to explore their creativity. This is also the case with the research that they explore. I think this is a very effective approach to stimulating creativity in teachers and my hope is that it will translate to encouraging creativity in students as well.

I think most teachers have the potential to creativity integrate technology into their classes , but primarily need to be given the support time and opportunity to do so.

Dr. Zhao argues that we suppress creativity and innovation. That is, we allow our teachers to be creative and innovative in pedagogical instruction and content knowledge. But we suppress creativity via a systematic educational approach. We undervalue our teachers, according to Dr. Zhao.

Dr, Zhao argues we all are great at something. That greatness is the creative and innovative side of us. We have to develop our creativeness and innovativeness. Dr, Zhao calls this personalized learning. He argues that Personalized learning starts as a child. Dr. Zhao also argues we should go back to product-based learning. He states product-based learning brings the talent out of a child.

This was a very inspiring conclusion to the keynote. I had never considered the prospect of ‘product-oriented’ learning. More so I think the idea of utilizing technology to encourage creativity and growth instead of reinforce the current paradigm is powerful. This made me think of the Web 2.0 concept of the consumer as the producer and how we might encourage that mindset in schools.

In terms of the 11 items I might consider Compatibility between teacher pedagogical beliefs and the technology. For item 1, a teacher would have to believe in the power of personalized learning. I think a powerful way to introduce this concept is to explain that this does not necessarily entail isolation of students but can still include collaboration.

For item 2, teacher would need to also adopt the belief that project/product based learning is valuable, and abandoning didactic methodologies can be advantages to student learning and creativity.

Item 3 might not directly correlate to a specific pedagogical belief as well. However, there are amazing examples of courses that have been created where students communicate directly with students of other cultures. By doing so students can think outside of the cultural paradigm in the US surrounding education.

For all three, by seeing examples of success, teacher may more likely change their pedagogical belief systems.

Dr. Zhao argues and recognizes, early on, that children are innovative, creative and do display genius skills. That said, I would meet the 3 elements and start the innovation at the K1-3 level. I would instill that innovation enables product-oriented and creative skills at that age.

Finally, Dr. Zhao envisions a global classroom that invents and creates products for the betterment of mankind. That said, I would collaborate with the US Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, and collaborate with the identical offices in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and fast start a global K1-3 classroom to meet the 3 elements of the new paradigm.