I find the latest xkcd funny and relatable. It says something. Is it that a natural interest in learning trumps the typical formal educational experience? Is it that geeking out with computers leads to career in a manner different than most other interests? Is it that it is impossible to give students the hard skills they will need in the workplace given the rapidly changing world? Is it that computer nerds do not appreciate the skills they acquired from studying other things?
The student represented by the graph above would be well served by an eportfolio where they could integrate their school experiences with their self-guided learning.
I sincerely apologize for sucking all the joy out of that cartoon.
This really gets me back to thinking about something that has been nagging at me since I went to NMC this past summer: Just what is education anyway?
Wonderful 'toon and commentary. I wonder at what age we could start our kids thinking about a portfolio? Maybe at the age they begin to show interest, they could be encouraged to show evidence of their path? I have a niece who was home schooled and primarily self directed- she's now at McGill. Thanks for a great topic for discussion.
In a way, my personal blog on Blogs@PSU had begun to serve (among many other things) as the beginnings of a portfolio of my school-aged child's work. While she's not involved in the technical part of maintaining the blog or posting the entries, I have begun to use it to capture her learning process as she goes through school.
She likes it because her work gets displayed publicly. I like it because it's an easy to access, searchable collection of my daughter's work that doesn't have nearly the same implications of space that the actual collection of work would have. Since I've started doing this, I've encourage a group of "mommy-bloggers" from all over the Twittersphere to do the same. I'm sure I'm not the only one to start doing this or to encourage others.
I don't think it's a matter of whether or not K-12 could or will do it. It's more of a question of when will they catch up to the tech-savvy moms who already are.