Buzzword pruning

  by C.K.H.

A lot of buzzwords have really passed their sell-by dates and maybe its time to bid them a fond farewell. We've been sticking 2.0 on to lots of words for at least 10 years and it simply isn't cool anymore. Cyber- is another term that has lost its sting. Talking to friends on Skype or Facebook is not cyberspace, I'm simply talking to friends. I also feel that we should tone down the e- in front of learning since it's about time we saw the e- as default and that education should of course make use of the technology and communication opportunities that are used in society in general.

A blog post by Richard Byrne, 21 Reasons to Stop Saying "21st Century Teacher" makes a good case for dumping another overused term. Since we are now 13 years into the 21st century it doesn't sound impressive anymore and the skills and teaching we are referring to are firmly rooted in the present decade and cannot be seen as typical of an entire century. We still have 87 years left of this century and a lot will happen in that period. Would we describe skills or technologies from 1913 as typical of the 20th century?

The post is also poking fun at all those list articles with titles like 5/10/20/21/30 awesome uses of the latest technology. Let's check our language use from time to time and do a bit of buzzword pruning.

Wait a minute ... isn't buzzword a buzzword?