Great Collaborators & Orchestrators: The New Middlers

[Anthony Armstrong]

I've been re-examining Thomas Friedman's, The World is Flat, for the purpose of our Onlineconnections project. In the section entitled, "The New Middlers," he gives his prediction for the types of jobs the future American middle class will have available to them in the flat world. Freidman believes that one of the possible future skills that Americans need to be suited for is the skill of "The Great Explainers." He writes that the flat world will need,

"...managers, writers, teachers, producers, and editors who are also good explainers - who can see the complexity but explain it with simplicity."

One of the assignments Jennifer has already had her students do was find examples of Web 2.0 sites and write a brief explanation of the site. What if we took this assignment to the next level by designing it around the "Great Explainer" skill that Friedman mentioned?

Objective: Students will find a Web 2.0 application and design an instructional wiki, video, screencast, etc. that explains how the technology works, and how it could be of benefit to a particular group, industry, or profession of people.

If we wanted to narrow the number of applications students could choose from, we could have the project set up so that the Web 2.0 application we want them to explain is already pre-selected. The task would then be to take that application and create a presentation that explains how it works and what its benefits would be to a particular group, industry, or profession of people. For example Flickr for artists, Diigo for lawyers, Twitter for educators.

I for one would be very interested in seeing what new ideas and perspectives students would have for the use of these tools in other professions. It is that type of creative thinking that I would also be after, in addition to their ability to clearly and simply explain the applications use, in a project like this. I don't know if the original creator of the wiki, Ward Cunningham had teachers and educators in mind when he designed his first WikiWikiWeb database, but look at how we as educators have benefited from the creative application of this tool for our own profession.

One could argue that true mastery and understanding is achieved by learners when they have the ability to accurately teach what they have been taught. In having students take on a project like this, with the purpose of learning not only Web 2.0 applications, but also becoming a "Great Explainer," they would be demonstrating not only their mastery of the Web 2.0 tools, but also, quite possibly, new methods of applications for these tools as well as possibly practicing one of the job skills they will need for their future flat world.

[Jennifer Dorman]

It is interesting that you mention that section from The World Is Flat. That is what motivated the following activity I used in my Online Connections class. http://onlineconnections.wikispaces.com/futureofwork

I posted a comment on your page about this as well.

I think I will start a forum about the challenges faced by asynchronous class collaborations . . .

[Anthony Armstrong]

That's a really good activity Jen. I'd be interested in reading your student's responses to that assignment. Could you do us a favor and share some of their replies with us? If I get the chance, I'll try and do the same activity with my students. Then we can compare and contrast how students in South Korea and America both see their future worlds.