Education is in worse shape than I thought

We're working in an architecture that uses Industrial Revolution systems on an Agrarian Revolution calendar to teach 21st century learners. So says Mark Milliton, and unfortunately, he's too right. The academy is archaic. There is no reason why IT can't work for education just as well, if not better, than the old model. Sometimes I feel Sisyphusian. Another madeup word. I have to be sad about this for a while. I don't want to wait until the kiddos who are in college and learning IT now take public office, or go into ed administration before we change the face of teaching and learning in the US. We are critically behind. According to this panel's statistics, colleges in China graduate @600,000 engineers a year, India @300,000, and the US 65,000. Even allowing for population differences, we are way behind. Every Child Left Behind is a failure. Anything after K-5 is a failure. The publish or perish tenure attitudes, especially at Tier 1 research universities does precious little to reward good teaching.

We are out of touch with our students, for the most part. We aren't really helping them learn the skills that they WILL be using when they graduate. Education is on the same priority level as something like taking out the trash, or maybe cleaning the toilet, if the amount of money and balance is any indication.

Not to say nobody is doing anything. I'm lucky to work at a Tier 1 university that does reward good teaching, even if it is only 10% of the awards given here. And many professors are on fire with improving education through IT, and proving it in the projects they support. That's pretty much what this article I'm writing is all about. The instructors who took the extra time to learn (or find a student or a colleague that could help them learn) how to appropriately apply technology to further learning.

Headline on the Daily Texan: President Powers to petition the State Legislature to allot more funds for education. Go for it, Bill! It would be the best thing you could do as a university president. This is giving me the incentive to post more about instructional technology. Note to self: link to IT sites in my Bookmarks.