Comments on: A Challenge From Jen and to Jen

By: ed

ed — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:48:34 +0000

We started small earlier this year in our school, with a group of volunteers who came once a fortnight before school to learn some new tools, have a play around and gradually try and implement just one thing at a time in their classrooms. The group has grown and we are trying new things all the time! We have had a couple of ‘show and tell’ sessions for teachers to share what they have tried with the rest of the staff. Now the teachers who didn’t participate began to feel left behind and are jumping on the bandwagon too. I started my own blog to share what we have been doing … and to practice blogging so that i can try it with my class

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:15:11 +0000

I am going to present some technology for the classroom this Wed. to all my teachers. I am going to challenge them to do just one thing new. Great thoughts! The challenge is on.

By: Jennifer Swanson

Jennifer Swanson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:40:48 +0000

Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. I couldn’t agree more!

By: Jason Kern

Jason Kern — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:43:00 +0000

I love the way you are thinking and I totally agree. We talk about the wonderful idea of giving students a global audience but that takes people participating not just talking about it.

Here’s a couple.

Sophomore classes exploration of Alice in Wonderland through blogging.
http://aliceproject.wordpress.com/

Youtube video made by Pre-AP Spanish students about the present perfect tense
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHS0SzqLFo

By: matt montagne

matt montagne — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:25:59 +0000

Scalability. This is the question that I think you are getting at, Jen. The majority of the kinds of things we talk about in our online spaces probably don’t scale very well in a situation of 8 period days, 47 minute class periods, teacher departmental silos, reductive measurements of learning, filtered Internet access, etc, etc. Is this an excuse?? Probably, but it is one reason why John Seely Brown advises that we “work the edges and the edges will eventually become the core.” I run a youth webcasting, live Internet radio project where our students do two broadcasts a month. It totally is NOT scalable to most teachers and classes as we see them now…however, it is an edge/fringe activity that is working and may eventually, like JSB suggests, become the core.

AddIn By Jen: Visit Matt’s site here: http://middleschoolblog.blogspot.com/

By: Paul Bogush

Paul Bogush — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:20:53 +0000

Great ideas Jen. Howabout an entire conference built around show instead of tell:
http://blogush.edublogs.org/2009/08/

And a couple of my favorite edtech student projects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHSj50msB1Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hdqZFT_b6U
And one that used tech to re-dub the audio and then video to share with the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dZMaps2PAo