Skip to main content

Redefining Awesome...Connected Learning

Last September, Will Richardson challenged our faculty to "Redefine Awesome" in what learning looked like in our district. The last few weeks, have seen some great connected learning opportunities happening at Valley View Middle School that get at what Will was talking about. 
Project Lead the Way
Tim Berendt, a teacher in our Project Lead the Way program, began using Twitter this year as a way for his students to share the work they are doing with the outside world, and also as a tool for formative assessment.  Students tweet out what they hope to accomplish at the beginning of the class period, and then tweet what they completed at the end. In many cases, students have received feedback and encouragement from people outside the district, such as this exchange from Autodesk, the company that makes the software the students use! 
Berndt did a great job at the start reminding students to follow our Web 2.0 Code of Ethics, and how they could use hashtags to label their work. Students label their tweets with #edinapltw, #STEM and #EduWin to share with different audiences. He was recently contacted by our local ABC affiliate KSTP-Channel 5 for a story about his use of social media in the classroom! Tim is seeing first hand the engagement and motivation his students get, when creating for an authentic audience! 




9th Grade Government
Students in Erik Anderson's government class recently had a debate with students in New Brighton, Pennsylvania via Skype! Erik had connected with Brian Pasquale, a fellow government teacher on Twitter during a weekly chat called #sschat. They realized that they had a similar curriculum, and thought they would try this as an experiment. It took a lot of work and planning the first time through, but as Pasquale noted on his blog :
The most interesting thing to me was how much they (the students) completed outside of class.  Numerous students told me about tweeting, texting, and googling outside of class and into the evening hours.  This was something I was hoping would happen (naturally) and was glad to see in some cases that it did.  In the workforce projects are no longer just completed by people in one office building; the some of its parts come from all over the world and the students need to be prepared to effectively engage in that environment.  I believe they already are, they just needed to apply their social life to their academic/vocational life.
The students met each other briefly via Skype on Monday, collaborated on Google Docs throughout the week, and then presented on Friday. Anderson noted that the students were totally engaged in the Cover-It-Live backchannel, which allowed the teachers and select students to moderate the discussion. They were also able to post poll questions to gather feedback. Several students brought their own devices and Anderson used the computer lab so all could be engaged. 


During Richardson's talk last fall, he mentioned how the National Council of Teachers of English defined literacy for students today. They need to be able to:

  • Develop proficiency with the tools of technology  
  • Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally  
  • Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes  
  • Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information  
  • Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts  
  • Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments


I would venture to say that Berndt and Anderson have done a masterful job of taking the leap and meeting these standards! Not bad for a social studies and engineering teacher!


If you would like to learn more about how you can use Twitter and other social media tools to engage your students and enrich your learning, I will be hosting a Webinar on Tuesday, March 20 from 4-4:30, CST. Details to follow.

Comments

I experienced examining your publish about the results of technological innovation on our technological innovation. Just the other day I thought about this subject and how people often destination to text messaging for a lot of discussion in their connection. Two ladies were considering to the full increase of what a bad youthful man was saying through text messages. Then they would work together on what to deliver back.


Digital Learning Trend

Popular posts from this blog

Nos Chemins vers la paix: Award Winning Video!

Valley View Middle School French Imersion teacher, Heather Palmer created this award winning video, Nos Chemins vers la paix , for the Tel.A.Vision " Vision For America " Contest. Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com Powered by One True Media , Tel.A.Vision.tv allows students to create videos that share their vision for the future. Heather wanted to use this video to promote the Wiki she and her students created for "6 Billion Paths to Peace." On the wiki, Palmer states: Our project was inspired by the program " Six Billion Paths to Peace ", an initiative of the Shinnyo-en foundation. We like the challenge the program offers us: commit to making a difference in this moment, in this day, in this lifetime! Palmer received her award last week at the National Service Learning Conference, in Nashville, TN. Way to go, Heather! NOTE: A few weeks ago while looking at the copyright free music available on the site, I notice a cover of the "Spinal

TIES 2012: Kathryn Smith: Innovative Spaces Support 21st Century Learning

Kathryn Smith , former Bemidji State professor, presented on Innovative Spaces Support 21st Century Learning. Her presentation slides can be found here . Today, learning can happen anywhere, anytime, and on any device.  She started by using PollEverywhere to ask about the status of mobile technologies and school learning environments. She thinks that the TPACK model is a good one to use when implementing professional development around 21st Century learning. We are using this model in our BYOD professional development. Smith notes that the National Educational Technology Plan , is a great road map for change. Research has shown that the appropriate use of technology and the appropriate design of learning spaces is having a significant positive impact on learning. The learning spaces today are not that far removed from 19th Century classrooms. She showed this video from the University of Michigan on research on design of learning environment. Here are more videos fro