6 Quotes by Yong Zhao

It is apparent that the traditional teacher-centered pedagogy needs to be changed. It is also more feasible than ever before to make the change. The change is more than piecemeal tinkering. It is a paradigm shift, a complete rethinking of how teaching and learning are carried out.

Technology should be used to create a learning space – a breathable space that nurtures possibilities rather than merely fulfilling predictions.

A more fitting metaphor of the traditional pedagogy is managing a factory of mechanical workers, where the teacher is the manager and students the workers. The teacher gives instructions and assigns tasks to students each day. The students work as hard as possible to finish the tasks. At the end of the work period, the students are rewarded or punished based on how well they have complied with the instructions and completed the tasks.

The prisoner’s dilemma.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. – Anatole France.

Maybe what really matters is technology’s power to enable students to reach a vast and real audience that they could never dream of in the traditional classroom.