Reinventing Education for the 21st Century (Designing School 2.0)

As Thomas Friedman persuasively argued in this book "The World is Flat," we live in a very different and rapidly changing economic and cultural environment. Schools need to change to prepare students for the dynamic opportunities of the 21st century workforce. Collaboration in most of our schools today is still called "cheating." Our factory model of transmission-based education must be transformed into one where learners regularly collaborate, access and "remix" digital information, and extend their learning beyond the traditional bell schedule. One to one laptop initiatives (where every student and teacher have wireless computing devices,) schools and libraries becoming community learning hubs offering public wireless and wired connectivity to the Internet, and the deregulation of education which frees learners to spend time in real-world, problem-based and project-based learning need to become hallmarks of education in the 21st century.This presentation shares this vision for reinventing education: Designing School 2.0, and offers suggestions for how civic leaders can move toward this vision at local levels.