Getting to teaching in the 4IR

Hello and welcome to Vi Africa's Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution Podcast, where I, Michael Goodman, get to talk about three things that I'm really passionate about. Learning, teaching and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As this is our first podcast, I thought it would be useful to have my friend and colleague, Heinrich Duk. Hello Heinrich, I'm Michael. I wanted him to join me because he's been pretty skeptical about this whole podcast thing. So my thinking is, is if I can convince him that it's worth giving up his time to listen every week, that you will be prepared to do so too. Looking forward to it. Excellent. So Heinrich, you seem to have some questions about the podcasting. Michael, first things first, why are you doing this podcasting? Well, the teachers are having to deal with change more than they've ever had to deal with change in any time in teaching history. And they're seeing it in various ways. They're seeing it in the way that they learn as interactive knowledge. It's not just about what the teacher knows, but it's about the learner being able to go online and get information for themselves. Also, learners have the opportunity now with social media to actually create knowledge. Secondly, in terms of teaching the resources are changing. No longer just a chalkboard and an overhead projector, but a whole lot of more technologies coming into the glass. And often it's not technology that the teacher chose. It's technology other people have chosen. And then finally, and very importantly, I think is that what employers are wanting is very different. The notion of some knowledge is just not good enough any longer. What they want is knowledge workers who can think critically, creatively, workers who can collaborate and communicate, and workers that are good world citizens, the five C's as it were. As we know traditionally, we speak of the four and the fifth is citizen, do you say? Yeah, well the five C's were always there. People just forgot about the fifth being citizen. And the point is that unless we good citizens, we don't have much of a future as a human race, I think. So one of this change, where does it leave the teacher? You know, when you become a teacher, you get taught a whole lot of things about who you are and what learning is about. And suddenly everything is changing indeed. So you take a lot of flats. I do. I know you do. Every time you get on an airplane, there's always that safety demonstration at first. And they say that in the unlikely event of a drop in cabin pressure, that oxygen masks are going to drop from the panel overhead. You then extract it to put the oxygen mask on first before helping other passengers. And what I'd like to see is that this podcast is that oxygen mask for teachers. That we're going to be a resource that we can discuss things, learn new things. Taking care of self, as opposed to what I want to say. Interesting. Michael, you said that there are three things that really excite you. Learning, teaching, and the fourth industrial revolution. Why? Well, I believe that learning is the key to everything. And I don't only be learning in a classroom. I mean learning about life and love and how to be successful. I love learning things and read like mad all the time. But equally, I love to share things. Well, I was born the year before the third industrial revolution started. And so I've only been able to see the consequences of it as I grew up. I'm aware of the world as we get going with the fourth industrial revolution and it excites me. Growing up, our family only got a house phone when it was about 10 years old. Now I communicate with people via the internet. Lots of change. Lots of change in just one area of my life. But at the same time, I'm concerned that so many people are afraid and unsure. I'd like to be able to make the journey easier for them. It's quite a noble cause. Thank you. Michael, what sort of content will you be covering in this podcast? Now I went to working three broad categories about the self, taking care of oneself as a teacher. But others, what it means to work in this fourth industrial revolution world, and then finally working with technology. So the teachers have a better sense of what it means to have technology in the classroom. It's quite interesting that we're speaking about technology, but you're not putting the device first. Humans come first. And for me, this constant fear that robots are going to take over, etc. And fundamentally, robots will never be able to take the place of a teacher. Robots will be able to help teachers if they employed correctly. But they're never going to take over. Michael, so I'm listening for the first time in my call or at the gym. What's the one takeaway you want me to go with today? Well, the way to cope with change is to learn and to teach others. As you know, teachers have a thousand and three things to do every day. How much time will this take up each week? I really appreciate that the time teachers have is tight. So I'm thinking that a podcast should really be about five minutes. It's not going to be a bit short, and it's a bit longer. But ideally, I want this to fit into the time it takes to enjoy a good cup of coffee. Or tea. Often we see that podcast turns out to be really much sales pitch. What are you selling, goodman? Well, I'm from via Africa, publisher of learning and teaching materials in digital and print formats. We also offer digital education teacher training on our online platform. But what I like is that we also give back to the community. And this podcast is just one way to share what we have learned with the aim of improving education. So, question, can you listen next week? Definitely, I'll just tell you we're in Winnond. Winnnd will be available and I'll be there. Excellent. Thanks very much for coming in. Thank you for having me. I'm hoping to get you back in a few weeks' time so we can talk about what you're doing at the digital education centres you work in. Fantastic look forward to sharing. Excellent. Now next podcast. I'll be talking about what the fourth industrial revolution is. And how it is having an impact on all of our lives. Please share this podcast with colleagues and friends who you believe will find it useful. Goodbye for now. [Music]