Praxis and Teach Me How to Dewey

I googled the definition of "praxis." Here's what came up:

prax·is/ˈpraksəs/Noun

1. Practice, as distinguished from theory: "praxis of Marxism".

2. Accepted practice or custom.

I boil down our entire SMAC program experience to praxis. In the comfort of Room 2229, we familiarize ourselves with educational theories with the intention of putting them into practice. Right now, we bow our backs as we trudge through classes on research, reform, content literacy, records of practice (which conveniently provided this blog with its name), and of course, technology. One of the major benefits of having a sibling complete the program is possessing a realistic sense of the future. Soon, we will be juggling coursework with our student teaching, struggling to complete our assignments while in turn giving our students assignments. Not long after, teaching will become a full-time commitment. We will spend less time sitting inside a classroom, and more time standing in front of one. Although the thought seems strange to me at present, in less than a year our metamorphosis will be complete, and we will finally emerge from throbbing cocoons as legitimate teachers, albeit with our realized wings still moist and glistening.

I suppose I should cease my rambling and discuss more relevant things, like praxis and technology. I am beginning to come to terms with today's academic landscape. During my elementary and middle school years, I remember doing research for speeches and book reports. Back then, success in those assignments meant going to the library's card catalog, looking up your subject, and then hunting down the indicated books. Once said books were captured, you had to open them up and render useful information from their entrails. Research and its trials were a necessary part of the learning process; knowledge was wrested out of the grasp of a savage and barren wasteland.

Today, that is definitely not the case. Anyone who can manage a keyboard and decipher the glowing symbols can use a computer -- which is, I reckon, anyone aged 2 years and up. Information is quite literally at our fingertips. The research beasts of my childhood have all gone extinct. The landscape is green, lush, and alive. Knowledge now hangs low on branches like ripe fruit with fibers strained to near bursting, and the air is permeated with their aroma. The fact that I could google the word "praxis" is evidence of how much has changed.

Which brings me to Dewey. If I was writing on another medium, I would probably launch into a brief biography and then mention his impact on educational reform. But I'm not going to do that. Information is quite literally at your fingertips. Go ahead and google him. Instead, I wanted to relate his "Pedagogic Creed" to technology. I won't spend very long doing this. In a nutshell, Dewey believed that the present and real life was central to education. Since real life exists in society, schools should teach students how to interact with society in the here and now. Given that the here and now is becoming increasingly dominated by the presence of technology, it is only natural that education should make use of it.

Thus, my paradigms of how and what to teach are also becoming extinct. Book reports, in their old form, can be completed within 15 minutes without having to read the book, since key information such as characters, settings, main plot points, and themes are readily available. Up until a few days ago, I was convinced that there was a major cleavage between what students "know" and what they can look up. I've decided that there is no difference; they are one and the same. Having knowledge is simply a matter of retrieval, and whether or not it comes from long term memory or a computer database is a distinction that is steadily losing importance.

And so, this is what I am going to be focusing on during the course of the program: How can I take theory and turn it into practice? Or in other words: Teach me how to Dewey (teach me, teach me how to Dewey).