Just finished reading Siemens, blog post Changing the System at a National Level and am struck by the excellent writing and insight.  Especially rich is his discourse on blending technology, with learning spaces. I consider the place based component of learning, that which is on the ground and f2f that augments and is augmented by technology rich collaborative learning environments as vital in this deliberation also. These places are where the work of mobile learning field science labs are, where young people hike the wildlands and engage with environmental leaders to develop strategies for the sociology of wildlands conservation and restoration, students applying there integrated learning to help shape their future.  I want to see rich networks of students in India working on UNESCO projects or eco-villages connecting via elluminate with Midcoast Maine networks of students doing the same, the interconnectedness of global civic culture.

However, the social and moral spaces of learning are not happening at the traditional school. “Education” has not time for the heart, the culture, the visioning of new systems, the hard work of constructing democracy through deliberation and action. So we do need to be careful to craft arguments about reform not in terms of what new tool we can use to trick students into being “educated” but the spaces we must co-create for them to learn in.  Young people are nervous and bored with traditional spaces of education.

Time to create/co-create new spaces for learning; time to act.