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October 18, 2007

Posted by Therese Laux, Blog Team, at 3:55 PM | Breakfast Sessions | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

“What are the skills that are relevant in today’s rapidly changing environment?” “What shifts will we have to make in order to increase options for our students?” These are but a few of the questions we need to ask ourselves according to Jim Brazell, from Texas State Technical College System.

Even the Army has embraced the change regarding the perception of the value of gaming in the educational process (Check out Army.com). In our “mixed reality” world, the blending of the physical, imaginary, and virtual planes offer us opportunities to see games as the next tool of educational technology.

If you’re thinking why, just check out Whyville.net. The Texas Workforce Commission is banking on its power to capture the attention of students, but especially females in the 11 – 15 years age range. If you’re a more “old school” learner, go to Ventureramp.com to get the free book download, Gaming: A Technology Forecast.

Being a huge fan of the works by Ray Kurzweil, I was excited to hear Brazell reference the futurist in our breakfast session. From mechatronics to micro-mechatronics and nano-mechatronics, our future may be so many years away, but it is truly just around the corner. A future where our students’ success depends upon a broad, deep, interconnected knowledge as opposed to specialized knowledge.

For a visual picture, think of the traditional “blue collar” becoming the new “gold collar.” Schools must have the educational pathways to produce tomorrow’s workers, and those workers are going to be coming out of our technical colleges. It’s not your grandpa’s community college anymore. It’s the integration of academics, career and tech ed, and the Arts that are going to propel our top performing students and schools.

It’s time to shift our thoughts from why this is happening to let’s make it happen now. Our futures and our country, depends on all of us providing our Millennial generation students with the real-world skills. Let’s get at it!

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