As we come to 2024, I think we, as a society, should learn to look to our elders…to those pioneers who are full of wisdom, ingenuity, experience, and insight.1

The context about which I speak is education and, specifically, educational technology.

Their proposals to conferences are being rejected. Their voices are being silenced.

Many of those pioneers still exist and they are not getting the respect or opportunities they should. They are being turned down for conference presentations. This is not rare. It is common.

We are foolish to not learn from their gifts. I see that we keep starting over again…instead of building upon the past—because the past is ignored.

I invite folks to read more than what was published yesterday.

And, trust me, I respect and welcome the genius, passion, and insights of those young folks who are well-educated and knowledgeable in these domains. New ideas, built upon old ones, are absolutely essential and desired!

All the pioneers of whom I speak have spent decades attempting to build capacity in our young people.

However, I am seeing that many of our educators (who are well-meaning and working hard!) are not as well-versed in educational theory and research as they maybe should be. That is the audience. Then there are the presenters.

When it comes to educational technology, there is a plethora of people yapping about it who are absolute newcomers who have no idea about the pioneering efforts, research, and development. They are getting much attention with their surface feature references to past gurus (maybe!).

Make the audience laugh. Make the audience cry. Reference a few gurus. Pass on a few pearls of stolen wisdom.

School districts and conference organizers have a responsibility to provide deep learning—not edutainment.

Ok. I’m done for now. 😉

Happy New Year. 😎

  1. Please realize I am not speaking of myself here. That would be rather cheeky. 😉

    This post was created with the encouragement of Doug Peterson based on an original discussion on FaceBook. ↩︎