Are we facing a major makeover of educational practices?

Lately, I was engaged in several independent conversations with teenagers, parents and educators about the ways the kids are educated these days. We all pondered over how education is not able to keep up with the changes in how people obtain, process and use information. As I learned today from two blog entries our questions were not that unusual and other people are wondering how to solve this problem.

A few points from The Steep “Unlearning Curve” by Will Richardson

1. We need to unlearn the premise that we know more than our kids, because in many cases, they can now be our teachers as well.
2. We need to unlearn the strategy that collaborative work inside the classroom is enough and understand that cooperating with students from around the globe can teach relevant and powerful negotiation and team-building skills.
3. We need to unlearn the idea that every student needs to learn the same content when really what they need to learn is how to self-direct their own learning.
4. We need to unlearn the practice that teaches all students at the same pace. Is it any wonder why so many of our students love to play online games where they move forward at their own pace?

Here is a snippet from Weblogg-ed (learning with read/write web) blog about Connective learning:
When our students are still being measured by tests that require them to memorize information instead of employ that information effectively. But for those schools with genuine access, like mine, it’s not the content that’s important any more. A lot of content gets lost, forgotten, or, especially today, quickly becomes irrelevant. We should instead be focused on teaching kids how to learn, so they can continue to employ effective practice throughout their lives.

iPhoto

Apple’s iPhoto application, which comes preloaded on every Mac, is a very simple application that allows the user to Import, Organize, Edit, and Share their digital photos.

Some key points about each part when using iPhoto – version 6.  

While importing, you can name the roll and add a selection before you click on Import.  Once it’s done importing, the pictures will appear in iPhoto’s library.  Organize it by clicking on the plus button on the bottom left corner to create a new photo album.  Back in the library, select the pictures you want and drag them into the album.  In the Editing mode, you can rotate, crop, enhance, retouch, adjust for red eye, apply one touch effects, or adjust the picture with specific sliders.  iPhoto makes sharing photos easy with many options including creating slideshows, creating and ordering cards, calendars, books, and photo prints, emailing the picture, and creating a photo page with iWeb.

Enjoy the time importing, organizing, editing, and sharing your memories. 

Create a Web site

TechThursday (10/25/2007)

4 (out of many) ways to create a classroom web site

Probably the most sophisticated: Dreamweaver - the software is loaded on your laptop. You create the web site on your local computer and then upload to the district server. Dreamweaver is used by professional web developers.

iWeb – Apple software (can’t run on PC), loaded on your laptop. Very intuitive WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software. Has build in templates, is connected to iPhoto (you don’t need to upload pictures, just drag them to your web page and edit them right there), keeps your pages organized. You need to purchase .Mac service to upload your web site.

Google Page Creator (part of Google Labs) – web based (you can use it on any computer connected to the Internet) WYSIWYG application, free (you just need a gmail account). Has several templates, pictures have to be uploaded, then can be edited). You can link to documents (Word documents). Unluckily Page Creator is not compatible with Safari, so you would need to have Firefox browser (download for free here). Example of a page here.

WordPress.com blog – web based (you can use it on any computer connected to the Internet), WYSIWYG application, free (you just need to create an account). You can have different pages (schedule, field trips, homework….). The blog format is nice since it keeps the posts on the main page in order, they are searchable and the parents can use RSS feeder to see posts right away. Here is an example – NixonTech Blog, Joe’s blog for B4.
Here is another blog to help you start: 4 steps to a new site at WordPress.com.

Blogging in action

Blogging is for communication. Here’s how it works.
The Technology Coaches (more information coming soon) in our District created a blog to be able to communicate efficiently and quickly. Thanks to a comment on this blog I now know about another teacher in our district who is using a blog for a class web site and I can share it with you: Janet Rose from Palo Verde. Have a look, it looks splendid.
Oh, I should not forget about Joe in our school. He has a blog for b4 too.

Maybe now you are more inclined to use a blog yourself.
If you want to start your class blog/website right away here is “how to” from Lidia, a parent who actually runs the blog for Janet Rose.
If you want to wait a bit Joe will be talking about web sites/blogs this Thursday after school.

Just getting started

The latest news? I created yet another blog (the one you are reading) to figure out which one is going to be most useful for classroom teachers to use as a web site or for a classroom to use as a classroom blog to communicate news to the community.

I already have a blog on blogger.com: classroom07 (just a try)

I created a web page using Google’s Web Creator: http://barbara2bb.googlepages.com/(another try)

So far the easiest for a web site would probably be Google’s Web Creator and I will try to pursue one of the 5th or 4th grade teachers to have a classroom blog. But I’m not sure what the rules for a blog edited by students should be. Any thoughts?
Some of the questions I have:
Should the comment feature be available?
Should the blog be accessible for anybody? Should there be a password protection and access given only to the students and their parents? Should the parents be able to comment?

One more think I need to test. Can you attach a document? Here is one of my activities – an intro to using web resources for 3rd graders.
It works. I had to upload the document first and then copy/paste the URL to make a link.