I love working with middle school students. They’ve nearly finished their American History wikis, and the engagement and excitement in the library is obvious.
Today, as I prepared to re-enter the world of strategic planning, one of the students walked up to me to talk about what he had done on his project.
He talked about how he had enjoyed working on it.
"Now all we have to do is answer the questions on the wiki," he said.
"Have you thought about narrating your comments in the Voice Thread instead of writing them in your notebook?" I asked.
"We can do that?" he asked, eyes wide. "Wow."
"Sure. You can all comment on each other’s now. Learn from each other…"
He walked away, smiling.
The moment wasn’t an epiphany. It wasn’t a tremendous "shift." But it was a moment that reminds me to keep the focus on the potential of change in how we teach. Does it matter that they answer questions on the VT instead of in their notebooks? Perhaps. I don’t have time to develop the argument now, but as I continue thinking about our vision, our hopes, our future, I will keep him in mind.
Image: ‘DSC00128‘
www.flickr.com/photos/58958840@N00/367043278
Author: scm
Exploding Walls, Creating Learning Opportunities
I met George Mayo last week in Philadelphia at EduCon, a coming together of teachers who are interesting in transforming education. It seems he is off to a great start.
Go Mr. Mayo
The Learning Continues
Since my trip to EduCon and SLA, I haven’t been able to sit still. I am
filled with an energy I can’t quite describe. This week alone, I’ve
worked on/helped with/logged into/twittered with/discovered…..
- our history teacher’s project where students research, upload powerpoint to Voice Thread, embed on a wiki with rest of the research, and share
- interesting new voices online-more people to follow on Twitter and more blogs to read
- a new presentation for our juniors and seniors about their online presence and how to create a positive one
- Mr.Mayo’s students’ sites–powerful
- Be Very Afraid, thanks to David Warlick.
- conversations
with my "skeptic," whom I took to EduCon. He has changed his American
History class as of today. And I enjoy his challenging questions; they
make me think - the fourth grade Voice Threads with Kim Cofino’s group…we are commenting away
- questions from a language teacher about wikis
- online PD with Robin Ellis and Darren Draper
- Tweets to new found friends that I can now picture
- my new computer–more memory and lighter:)
- twitter with my colleague Jennifer (jclarkevans)
I
am so grateful for the opportunity to learn and share. Mostly it was
the opportunity to hear new voices, re-focus my own goals, and plan for
this semester in a meaningful way.
Connections.
EduCon –finally
You know when reality can’t possibly live up to the anticipation? I had prepared myself for that possibility–that I would arrive at SLA and find just another school.
That the edubloggers I had been chatting with would just be people. Well, ok, they are just people. But fun people, thoughtful people!
But so far, this event has given me much to take home and share with colleagues.
The students are bright and articulate. We had the chance to chat with a group at the end of the day in an advisory period. We asked what the best part of being at SLA was and, by far, the answer given most often was "we are respected and allowed a voice here."
Not the technology, though that’s evident and used effectively.
The teachers clearly love what they do, and Chris Lehmann, the principal has shared a clear vision of what the school should be.
Tori, the Spanish teacher who is with me asked if their experience at school helped them in their internships (they have wonderful opportunities to intern and study in the community once a week during release time). A young man, hair in his eyes, slouched in his chair, raised his hand. "My internship is working with scouts. When I need to teach them, I model my teaching after how my teachers here teach–in ways that I don’t get bored–in ways that really keep my attention." Great answer. Bing, bing.
Keith, our Latin/history teacher, commented on how the students seem so engaged and intellectually curious. Most classes are loud and active, but there is obvious learning going on his this school.
Tomorrow, we will have a chance to share what we’ve seen and talk what makes this work. David Warlick says it well, so please go read this. He says this:
"…you have to walk out of this school with more optimism about education than you walked in with."
I agree, David.
Brain Spinning
Wooooooosh.
The last several days have been filled with exciting learning moments for me. I spent much of the time working on proposals for Will’s and Sheryl’s Powerful Learning Practice program. We hope to be the contact/organizing school for Virginia and surrounding locations, but that means I need to find 19 other schools to join us. I’ve been writing and phoning, posting on lists and nings, and talking to teachers at my school in hopes of making this work. I want this!
Yesterday, I also met with several new teachers to begin projects, good projects that use technology in meaningful ways. For us, it’s a great start.
Then, last night, two colleagues came to my house around 6pm to set up for some online professional development a la Darren Draper and Robin Ellis at Open PD. Sue Waters chimed in as well as Jeff Utecht–wow–that’s all I can say. Spending time chatting online, watching Darren and Robin teach, and figuring out Skype was invigorating for all of us. (Next time I’ll remember to actually exit Skype instead of minimizing it when I hook external speakers to my laptop so others can hear!)
Today I spent time in three eighth-grade classes working on wikis and research. They jumped right in, and I loved looking around the room to watch learning happening.
After school, I met with the history department. And, although I was hit with some challenging questions about our vision of student learning and where we are headed with all this, I felt like it was a good start to a much-needed conversation about 21st century learning.
Tomorrow. Well, tomorrow, I am going to EduCon.
I hope to join conversations and learn more about how best to work with faculty and students. Plus, I’m taking two teachers with me: my favorite skeptic and a new teacher who is eager to learn. Should be fun!
I’ll live blog and Twitter as much as I can, so stay tuned!