Paradigm Shift?

   

It is becoming more popular now as it makes life easy or perhaps for convenience sake if not just show off. The first time I experienced it was at church service when the Priest asked everyone to open their bibles but realised few church members pulling their mobile phones from their purse and pocket. Interestingly, one old folk tapped the shoulder of a young lady who had a phone and then pointed his hand to the notice “Kindly switch off your mobile phone, thank you.” The old folk stared astonishingly after the lady whispered quietly “it has a bible”. On Palm Sunday, the Priest used an IPad for his sermon, prayers and bible readings. A few years back this would have been entirely impossible.

“He is not poking back my pokes after leaving the message on his wall, I wish I didn’t tag him on that album” – “I followed his twits after googling his company’s name” – “facebooking is restricted during working hours, we mean business not pleasure”. If it was easy to understand the scenarios above, I guess you’re a 21^st Century citizen, if not, why not? I believe you’re getting the point I’m trying to make now. The way we live our lives today has changed radically, leaving technology to take control of most of our time.

Time to check a quick email turns to hours on social media websites, if not on facebook. My grandmother would certainly agree with you about this change because even though she appreciate the fact that she can talk to us anytime through my uncle’s phone, she has no idea how this is possible. Possibility is what technology stands for.

Yes, we’re in the social media revolution, the digital age where uprising in our (physical) societies easily sparkle from the (virtual) internet. We’re in the knowledge age where the role of the teacher in the classroom is not just providing information but guiding and empowering students to be creative and innovative because most (if not all) information is available online.

Right, it’s quite obvious about the encroachment of technology in the 21^st Century but keep in mind that not all nations or societies in the world are experiencing this paradigm shift. Therefore any attempt to revolt against the Chief in my hometown via facebook or twitter would not be only in vain but inconsequential. If you doubt, try! Many societies still live outside the system even though technology keeps travelling on a top speed.

America still remains leaders in technology innovation in the world – designing technology tools and applications for the internet are based on their lingua franca, culture and ideologies. And this is influencing other cultures around the world. Typical examples are freedom of association, freedom of information (sharing), transparency and respecting individual privacy – this have played major role in effecting the uprising of nations through social media websites.

Today, we need 21^st Century leaders’ not just leaders leading in the 21^st Century. We need leading experts in Change, Innovation and Strategy like Dr. Dave Richards, who is a globally successful senior executive, serial entrepreneur and intrapreneur, innovator, author, inspirational speaker, and advisor on strategic innovation and leadership -  Desi Lopez Fafie, who is a highly capable business executive and leader, with excellent skills to build relationships and manage large groups of people with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and has the eyes to unearth the potentials, opportunities and possibilities in the African continent (http://dfafie.wordpress.com) and John P. Kotter, a Professor of leadership, emeritus, at Harvard Business School, who is widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority  on leadership and change (http://blogs.forbes.com/johnkotter/).

Just as social media has opened a dialogue between businesses and consumers, its value is apparent to those in political office, whose work and very professional survival hinges on the needs and perceptions of their constituents. But when was the last time a local politician garnered the same social media buzz as a hip start-up, or a savvy online retailer?

We need a government that embodies the paradigm shift of the 21^st Century like President Barak Obama. There’s still an entire year and seven months until the U.S. presidential election on November 6, 2012, but social media has already played a huge role in the burgeoning race.

About three weeks ago, Mitt Romney had already announced his bid on Youtube. and Tim Pawlenty had already joined the race through his facebook page. President Obama also kicked off his re-election campaign with a number of digital initiatives.

President Obama continues to leverage IT leaders’ role to grow the American economy. No wonder he created the Chief Technology Officer position in his government, which Eric Schmidt (Executive Chairman, Google) was mentioned as a possible candidate.

Increased mobility, immigration, intermarriage, and access to job opportunities worldwide have led to another kind of blending and mixing-communities across the globe are becoming ever more culturally diverse in the 21^st Century. Even though I’m not an American citizen, I concur the speech by President Obama on “Building a 21^st Century Immigration System”. In his speech President Obama said, “…it doesn’t matter where you come from, doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter what faith you worship, what matters is you believe in the ideals on which we were founded.”

The 21^st Century challenge for each of us is to build and maintain our own identity from our given traditions and from the wide variety of traditions all around us. At the same time we should all learn to apply tolerance and compassion for the different identities and value of others.

With growing diversity of global traditions and values that now surrounds us, the challenge to maintaining social harmony is great, but the opportunities for richer, more creative, and vibrant communities are even greater.

That’s the way technology is affecting the way we live and work today.

Is this a paradigm shift? Your comments are welcome.

Thank you!

© Harry Tetteh

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Diverse teams for classrooms?

How time flies! Memories of my involvement in the ThinkQuest International challenge (2002) come into mind especially when I’m at work due to its profound impact on my life. ThinkQuest is an international competition that challenges students to work in diverse teams around the world to solve real world problem by applying their critical thinking, communication and technology skills.

In my ThinkQuest team, we were diverse team members from Ghana, Egypt, Netherland, Australia and USA. We worked together online to create a project on sea mammals with the title “Gentle Giants of the Deep”. Of course, we were working from different time zones exchanging over thousand messages in the course of the project. Most times, I stayed overnight when it is mid-day for some of my team members. We used different web tools to create and share our work online, constantly adding, editing and modifying our work.

The first time I met with some of my team members was at San Diego for ThinkQuest conference in 2006. It took a short time to readjust with my team members because there are no accents in online messages, and the finer points of personality, styles, body language and joke could not be fully appreciated until the team was physically together. Our friendship also deepened.

The world of work is increasingly made up of diverse virtual and real teams working together to solve problems and create something new. Why do students mostly work alone and compete with each other for teacher approval?

Today’s fields of endeavors are made up of team diversity, from the soccer field to the field of work. Increased mobility, immigration, intermarriage, and access to job opportunities worldwide have led to another kind of blending and mixing-communities across the globe are becoming ever more culturally diverse. Though this diversity has brought vitality and richness to our communities, difference between traditional culture and modern values are still a troubling source of tension in the world.

Students need different skills for these new challenges. There should be a vibrant global movement in play to retune the instruments of education for a rising band of digital learners, and to sync up learning to the new rhythms of the 21^st Century.

Diverse work teams, scattered around the globe and connected by technology, are becoming the norm in the 21^st Century work. Diverse schools and communities are also becoming more common worldwide. The ability to work effectively and creatively with team members and classmates regardless of difference in culture and style is an essential 21^st Century life skills.

Understanding and accommodating cultural and social differences, and using these differences to come up with even more creative ideas and solutions to problem, will be increasingly important throughout this century. The skills to become socially adept, cross-culturally fluent global learners and citizens are more important than ever.

21^st Century.

In our newly flat world of connected knowledge work, global markets, social media world, tele-linked citizens, and blended cultural traditions, the 21^st Century demands a fresh set of responses.

To be a productive contributor to society in our 21^st Century, you need to be able to quickly learn the core content of a field of knowledge while also mastering a broad portfolio of essential learning, innovation, technology and career skills needed for work and life.

And when you apply these skills to today’s knowledge and innovation work, you are participating in a global network in which, for example, a product may be designed in Africa, manufactured in China, assembled in the USA and sold in cities across the world.

© Harry Tetteh

What does this mean?

It really marvels me when dedication for work becomes the pleasure to make an impact. My good friend William Effah Owusu gladly welcomed the responsibility as an opportunity to teach Seidi D/A Junior High School and make an impact with his profession as a teacher. Trust me; very few city residents would accept this task.  Seidi is rural community located within the suburb of Ashanti region of Ghana with population less than 1000 and maize farming as their main profession. They don’t have flowing tap water but recently got connected to the electric grid through cash contributions by school teachers in the village.

William now lives in Seidi but occasionally comes home (to Kumasi city) and gets the chance to check his emails. It was a delight to reconnect with William on Facebook to share his experiences.

According to William, very few students are able to graduate to the Senior High School at Seidi, let alone obtain a University degree. Not because the students are not intelligent but the school lacks the basic educational resources to equip the students development. Profession of parents is automatically inherited by their children in Seidi. Students need to be continuously persuaded and motivated to attend school each day. Some students even prefer to assist their parents on the farm in the morning and join the class in the afternoon.

Even though Information Communication Technology is part of their curriculum, William says “the mention of it in class seems like one of the planets somewhere on the solar system”. The only computer which William helped to purchase is now the school’s computer lab. Seems like the pace of the 21^st Century change differs globally and what does this mean for education?

Research has disclosed that the top 10 in-demand jobs for 2010 did not exist in 2004. The amount of new ‘technical information’ is doubling every 2 years. So for students starting a 4-year technical related degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. And what does this mean?

Of course, this brings a lot more questions in mind after thinking of how the world was when we were kids and what the world has become today.  All boiling down to where exactly is the world heading – or – what would the future of the kids of today be? The information age brought more knowledge workers due to the demand for their services. Obviously, we are preparing students for jobs that do not exist today, in order to solve problems that we do not even know exist yet. 

The invention of IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) has led to the increase of internet devices from PCs to mobile phones, TVs, watches and counting. What does this mean? To share with you some interesting facts....

Google says over 31 billion searches are done on its servers every month. In 2006 the number was 2.7 billion. To whom were these questions addressed before Google? Wikipedia was launched in 2001 and now features over 13 million articles in more than 200 languages.

Studies show the number of unique visitors on Facebook, Youtube, and Myspace every month collectively exceed 250 million. But none of these sites existed 6 years ago. We’re living in exponential times indeed.

How are you using social networking sites?

Social media is not a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate, connect and relate to each other in the 21^st Century. Interestingly, the virtual world created by the internet is also presenting a virtual culture. A typical example is the language widely adapted online with numerous abbreviations especially on chat sessions to express our mood. For example, “l8r” for “later”, “g2g” for “got to go”, “brb” for “be right back”, “lol” for “laughing out loud” etc. Anyway, how many of us honestly were actually laughing out loud before typing “lol”? – Well, I wouldn’t be surprise to see these chat expressions appear soon in dictionaries if it hasn’t yet. What does this mean?

Everyone should have a passing interest in technological development as eventually they may change everyone’s life for the better. The 21^st Century Skills brings the skill set needed to continuously prepare workers and students to survive today’s challenges and enjoy tomorrow’s opportunities. What does this mean?

It means that education is no longer a pathway to opportunities but a prerequisite for success in the 21^st Century. I share with President Obama that in the 21^st Century, “…a nation most valuable currency is the knowledge and skills of its people”. And like Sarah Brown Wessling (2010 National Teacher of the year, USA) said, “we need 21^st Century teachers not just adults teaching in the 21^st Century” to prepare our students for the future.

© Harry Tetteh

Is there a Balance?

“Yippee!!” Oh yes, Maame Abena couldn’t help but to join in the celebration of the last penalty kick by Agyeman Badu which made the Ghana Black Satellites, champions of the under 21 World Cup competition.Maame Abena is just a little over one year old but always proves to be a quick learner even though she is still learning how to give the right answers to “How old are you?” and “How are you?” Her response has always been “I ya fan,” with a smile, of course. Maybe that’s her easy way out. Interestingly, her big sister who is close to 3 years old takes pride in her ability to keep her eyes closed to recite from memory letters “A” to “Z”. Does this make any difference by keeping her eyes opened? You’d better keep mute and congratulate her on that!

The question I ask myself is “are kids of today better off in their mental development in school than our time?” Hmm, I still remember basic and primary school days when one was forced to keep countries and their capital cities in memory. Wow! those early morning “Mentals” code named “morning tea” in school . Mental was arithmetic drill from student to student by the teacher in the classroom. Failure to provide the right answer within a stipulated time (usually within some few seconds) results in lashes in your palm, buttock or back (not fun!) And then, Spelling Bee code name “dictation” followed in the afternoon with the usual lashes upon those unable to spell some words correctly. We usually got scared when we encountered big words like crocodile, hippopotamus, trypanosomiases etc. Well, no wonder school wasn’t fun for some of us during those days, but I think it also helped us to be able to memorize definitions and formulas in the junior high school.

The senior high school was a lot more fun because we were allowed to use calculators in the classroom and even get access to formula tables during arithmetic, science and economics exams.

Today, some educators still find it hard to embrace technology in the classroom because they complain it’s reducing brain development and encouraging laziness on the part of students due to easy access to information for homework, project work or assignment. “Students of today think they know more than their teachers and parents” is what most tutors say but I don’t think it’s true. 

During the introduction session at “The Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age” workshop by Sesame Street recently, Dr. Eric Schmidt (CEO, Google) stated that “our challenge today is to narrow the gab between Education, Learning and Internet” which I concur.

The basic tools and context for learning has changed from pens and pencils to mouse and keyboard, papers and books to applications and software, classroom and school community to the internet (global virtual community).

But sadly, some of our local lecturers in some universities still insist on producing the replica content of their handout/lecture notes as answers to exam questions without any additional facts from the internet. Others restrict you to only books from the shelves of the school library but the reality, often times is, these books (if even available) are too old. 

Search engines speed up research with access to diverse related and recent facts. More time is spent on critical-thinking and critical-analysis, summarizing and synthesizing, then designing and problem solving. The days of direct instruction in the classroom for the 1^st position student are gone. This age is a collaborative construction classroom. No more teacher-directed classroom, it’s now student-directed classroom. The theory-based lessons should be practically based with more skills as knowledge.

Ultimately, we learn for life and not for school in the 21^st Century for a better balance of education.




© Harry Tetteh

Who's in Charge?

Have you thought for a second about this; does the way we live our lives today gives technology much authority over our lives? For instance, today’s world would not be adaptable to people of a few generations ago and nowhere is this truism greater than in the world of computing. Over the years, technologies have been invented to address society's problems or to fulfil its growing desire for speed and convenience. The microchip has truly revolutionised the way in which we live and work. Technology pretty much touches all of our lives in some way and hence technology news is a vital resource that can keep us up to date with developments and changes in the 21st Century.

Take an average work day of a 'knowledge worker', someone whose main work day is around information. For example, a programmer, a stock broker, an investor, a sales person, a consultant and other office workers.

He probably has a cell phone, a laptop and an organizer. This is in addition to the land line he has on his desk. Of course he also has a desktop computer, or a laptop that he takes with him at home and on trips. On that computer, he must have email, e.g. Microsoft Outlook probably with immediate notification when a message arrives. He also has an Instant Messaging program, such as Yahoo Messenger, ICQ or Skype. He has client contacts on all of those means of communication, as well as family and friends too. He may also have other network contacts from Facebook, LinkedIn or Myspace whiles keeping updates with interested news on Twitter.

A Skype message pops up with a client asking for a quote on something. Meanwhile, his sister pops up on Yahoo Messenger asking him about how a relative is doing. An email notification comes in with a SPAM announcing mortgage rates. Another email message pops up about corporate news. His office phone rings with a colleague asking him something work related. Outlook Calendar pops up a video conference meeting reminder. His cell phone keeps beeping about an SMS text message he earlier got from a friend. He also needs to check the latest news on the web, the latest comic movie, some corporate information and newsletters.

Well, I think you get the idea now. Life is turning into a series of interrupted interruptions and leaving us the question – who is in charge? How is someone supposed to do any work or enjoy some reading/research without being interrupted? The sheer number of ways that we can be contacted here and now is always multiplying. As a result, our attention span is shorter and shorter as time goes by. The only time for peace and quiet - where you may be in charge may well be on a remote island with a book where there is no technology – not even a cell phone and internet.


© Harry Tetteh

From a Distance?

Like me, I believe many of you didn’t enjoy your early school age due to some interesting reasons or perhaps you did. I think I didn’t like the idea of always carrying my table and chair on my head from home, walk like half a mile to school feeling tired already. Truly I have experienced different kinds of educational setting including classrooms, lecture halls, conference halls and virtual classrooms. Among these, the most interesting but challenging for me was the virtual classroom which I think was due to the intensive integration of technology. Living in my home country, Ghana and obtaining a degree from California, USA was not possible some few years back.

As they say, the technology era has brought tremendous change in our life and work. One major change which I think needs to take effect soon is the definition of “School” in most dictionaries including the Collins Dictionary. A school does not need to be only physical structures but could be virtual which even comes with better educational facilities.

I was very glad about my online program but I was also a little hesitant initially because of difficult access to the technologies that comes along with it especially internet. Internet access has always remained limited and expensive with mostly slow connectivity in Ghana. I ended up hopping from internet cafes then landed on a Company’s internet service at night hours when the workers are closed and gone home. The night was also favourable for me because I was 8hours ahead of the University I enrolled, which made me able to interact with my instructors and course mates online when it was midday for them. I did enjoyed living like the nocturnal during that period.

Unlike the traditional classroom setting, the technologies used in delivering distance education are synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous technologies required students to be present online at that same time as the instructor. We used text chat, audio and video chat sessions, to interact. Usually, this medium required arranged time for meeting online. Asynchronous on the other hand is where we access course materials or post to a discussion board at our schedule. Asynchronous was my favourite for the course because I could quickly download and save all my materials on my laptop and get time to look at them at home where there was no internet. But the frustration part on both technologies was slow internet speed.

Distance education has come to stay for good especially in the 21^st Century where technology rain is falling all over the world with nonstop innovations. Above all, I think distance learning pros outweigh its cons. There is self-paced learning in distance education. You can quickly browse materials you have already mastered, and concentrate time and effort in areas containing new information and skills, study materials at a personal speed and intensity, without having to wait for slower pace of the traditional classroom.

There is also flexibility to join conversations on the discussion boards at any hour, and to review your course mate comments since the previous visit. Distance learning does not require commuting. This saves money and time that would otherwise be spend on travel back and forth to school. You can schedule learning around other aspects of your personal and professional life. Online classes address physical accessibility issues that some people with limited mobility encounter when taking traditional classes. You don’t have to worry about gaining access to a classroom or sitting on uncomfortable desks. Instead, you can use your comfortable furniture in your home while enjoying free movement and a chance to further your education.

Some of the cons may be lack of social interaction. If the classroom environment is what you love most about learning, you may want to take a step back and reconsider distance learning. You’ll likely get some interaction on chat rooms, discussion boards and through email, but the experience will be quite different than traditional classroom. The format may not be ideal for all learners. In other words, not everyone is an ideal candidate for distance learning. If you know you have problems with motivation, procrastination and needs lots of individual attention from an instructor you may want to think long and hard before enrolling in a distance learning program.

From a distance? Absolutely! Beside educational institutions, a lot of corporate and government institutions are delivering resources and services from distances like health care, training, maintenance and support services. A new age of education for a new generation indeed.

© Harry Tetteh