Digital Division, Polychronic Multiplication

On the SLED board recently, someone quoted Robert Benchly who said,

"There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't."

Then I found Kim Flintoff's site: Grip,Fix,Turn which has been examining "the limits of these (the Prensky) metaphors in relation to education."
"While there are ever expanding communities of open-source developers and others resistant to the thrust of monopolising corporations, we cannot assume that students are likely to be a part of that movement."

The idea of a Polychronic Classroom should first and foremost take into account EVERY student, be they Polychronic, Monochronic, or anywhere in between. Take this test and find out where you are on that scale.

I have found many who disagree with Prensky's terms and some who are just glad he used them just to start this discussion. I thank everyone on SLED for their wonderful feedback and insight into this matter.

This idea from the Learning Games Blog and Mark Owens clearly supports the idea of a Polychronic Classroom:
"If people assume that what Prensky states about digital natives to be true - and it turns out to be false - then they might end up delivering teaching that is less well suited to their students than they believe to be the case. "

A Polychronic Classroom must provide multiple channels of content transfer MOST familiar to the student and therefore would allow a monochronic student to function and thrive in a very linear, task oriented manner. It should not force a student to work outside of their normal mode of operation, in which they will learn best. The classroom may only benefit from providing a multimodal approach that incorporates both traditional and technologically savvy approaches to pedagogy.

Perhaps the word polychronic insinuates or defies the idea of a monochronic state, but in theory a monochronic state exists inside a polychronic one.