Anti-teaching

The articles/videos provided are inspiring and scary. They highlight the reasoning behind the paradigm shift we are trying to achieve in our classrooms as a result of taking the EMDT program.
The good news is that we have the net and can openly discuss, without personal incrimination, that students are disinterested in learning. The discussion is becoming prevalent and parents are in as much despair in many cases as teachers. It is interesting that money and politics don't seem to be entering into the discussion. It isn't about those "causes of problems" for a change--it's about the curriculum and the teaching methods that are outdated and have been, for at least a quarter of a century, very far behind the learning curve of the students. Now the back room grumblings of all involved are now in the classroom, the dining room, and the school boardrooms. What to do-what to do--what to do?
Virtual Learning environments with the CMS can provide high hopes as the next bridge to a new and brighter horizon. There is the brain-based motivational strategy of novelty, the interactivity of 2.0 complete with the need of connectivity through social networking. Students are much more involved in their curriculum and the the PLE, a new and exciting instructional design has been added--the student being the interactive learner-the teacher being the guide, not just the disseminator of information.
And, is technology in and of itself, enough? For right now, it is a huge step. Once all classroom environments are wired, who knows? My guess is not. My guess is that students still need to get up and move around in the K-12 environment. My guess is they need acting and art and music to keep their minds and hearts in balance. My guess is that if you saturate students with any method--no matter how novel--they will eventually tire of it--because we're not just talking about learning environments and teaching protocol, we're talking about human nature. If I had a perfect school, it would be in-door/outdoor and every room would have the arts incorporated into the working day. There would be not only the one wonderful class design that Wesch described, but there would be many of the physical environments as outlined in the brain based learning and multiple intelligences would be applied in all lesson planning, as would the Socratic method and other critical thinking questioning techniques.
Planned Learning Environments (PLE) has a wonderful future, but as pointed out, there are still too many flaws, and it certainly would have to be greatly amended and/or taught in small segments to students younger than high school. I have some problems with the concept of PLE insofar as if it is the sole way that students would learn in all of their courses, it might create a situation where once again, the student is creating a virtual reality that doesn't necessary translate into the real world. However, many of the 21st century learning skills such as self-reliance, responsibility, critical thinking are certainly necessary to complete the task. PLE has an exciting future along with CMS and web 2.0 We're all on the cutting edge, which means we're ahead of the curve, but we haven't completely refined the curve, or gotten around to the other side yet.