Access isn’t Value
Having access to data is not the key to success any more; it does not confer power or achievement. Those who know are no longer the ones who are landing the jobs. Those types of jobs are dwindling. Those who just have knowledge are more likely to be dependent on others and not in control of their own destiny.
The key to success is the ability quickly find, sort, analyze and act on information. The valuable skills today are information processing and creativity. These are the individuals who will be able to create their own future. The information age has brought us a wealth of digital content that can be accessed and searched online. Older paper archives, audio recordings and images are being digitized and distributed. Nearly all the world’s information will be accessible from everywhere for everyone.
Those that can search through this information to quickly find relevant, reliable and credible information and organize it have a valuable skill that many of us would envy and that many businesses seek. Those that can process, analyze, draw conclusions and make use of this information are harder to come by. Individuals that can take it to the next level, think outside the box, see the big picture, create new ideas, processes, and business are a rare breed indeed.
As we begin a new school year are your practices helping your students become a knower or a processor?
5 thoughts on “Access isn’t Value”
Great post, Beth. It is so important that we start engaging students with higher order thinking skills. Information is nice, but the ability to think critically is so key in today’s society.
Hello Beth, I was searching through some educational blogs and came across yours. You make some valid points on why we can’t rely on just access anymore. Processing is extremely valuable. I’ve been conducting research on the Flat Classroom (global education) projects and I’ve concluded that students need to be processors. For example, the students participating in these global education projects were placed in cross-cultural groups from around the world. Each group had a classroom coordinator to help facilitate the classroom environment. The required outcomes for the Flat Classroom projects have the following four mandatory components for students: 1) written, audio, or video introduction posted as a blog on the educational network; 2) a written collaborative report using a wiki where students edit the wiki and discuss the topic on the discussion tab of the page in teams; 3) a personal multimedia response (digital story/video); and 4) a postproject reflection where students will post their reflection on the process to the educational network (Ning). I feel this is right in line with your reasoning of students being processors. Moreover, these students are using technology to help them process in a cross-cultural fashion. Great post!!
Hi Ms. Beth, I am Kelsey Bebee and I am a student from the University of South Alabama majoring in Elementary Education. I am in a class called EDM 310 (http://www.edm310.blogspot.com/) and it is a technology based class that will benefit our classrooms in the future. In that class, I have assignments to read other educational blogs and comment on them. My professor Dr. Strange informed me to view your blog. I also think that with new technology it makes it a lot easier for people to access information. The hard part, like you said, is processing the information quickly and take action with the information that you have found. My question for you is how do you make your students more of the processor and not just the knower?
Hi Kelsey,
By allowing your students to be do-ers. If students are passive and just told what to know and repeat what they know they will rarely engage with critical thinking. Buy allowing students to research information they will need to evaluate that information to determine if it is reliable, relevant and credible. They will need to process what they find for themselves and not wait for the “sage on the stage” to tell them what to know. Having your students create (document, story, video, podcast, blog, etc)communicate and share their understanding with others will provide them the opportunity for feed back to refine their thinking and communication skills.
Guess you read The World is Flat? I keep trying to explain this to my high school students but, they would rather be told than think for themselves….scary stuff!!