Learning to be Unschooly

The current debate in the blogosphere over what’s “schooly” and what’s “un-schooly” reminds me of that classic Ray Charles recording, What’d I Say where Charles (the leader) shouts a line and the Raylettes (his background singers) repeat the line back, in unison. It’s like a preacher asking, “Can I get an Amen” and the congregation shouting back, “Aaaaameeeeennnn.”

At a certain point in the song, Charles shouts “heeeeyyyyyy,” and the Raylettes repeat the line “heeeeyyyyyy.” When he says “hooooo” the Raylettes respond back with “hooooo,” using the same approximate pitch and tone as Charles, the leader.

When Charles speeds up his lines, “heeyyyy, hooooo, heeyyy, hoooo, heeyy, hooo, hey, hoo, hey, hoo, hey, hoo, the Raylettes respond by speeding up their lines. This interplay is repeated numerous times throughout the song. Even the bass and piano lines are built on this same classic call and response exchange.



I contend that a similar call and response takes place in the classroom, between teachers and students. In many ways, the teacher’s lesson plan is like a musical score that is first sung by the leader – the teacher, then, the students, the chorus, upon hearing the leader’s phrasing, (lesson plans) respond back in generally the same key and tone as the teacher. The students do this through their schoolwork, homework and imaginative class participation. Once this simpatico is established, you have what is commonly referred to as a jam session.

In my mind, this musical comparison is far from radical. One might even call it conservative, even schooly. But as many a seasoned player has said to me in the past, “you’ve got to know how to play in, before you can play out.” As a teacher/leader, I need to hear you play the Julie Andrews version of My Favorite Things first, and then we can talk about playing it John Coltrane style (or your way). As a teacher/leader, I need to hear you play All The Things You Are in the tradition of Hammerstein and Kern, first, and then we can talk about playing it Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Paul Bley style. If that is being schooly, then I don’t want to be unschooly. (Luther Ingram)

This week my students were asked to sub-title their weekly This Week In Blogs slideshow “The Unschooly Edition.” This week, and possibly for the next several weeks, I want my students to arrange and design the curriculum and assessments for this final marking period as they see fit. Students in my Media Literacy class will use Survey Monkey, the online survey creation tool to create a series of tests, surveys and to take polls on a wide variety of schooly and unschooly topics that we mutually agree upon. My students will also be given the freedom to propose topics and assignments that are of particular interest to them. I'll be sure to keep you current.

H. Songhai
4/30/08

How Much Do You Make?... Beyond School

I came across this video on the Beyond School blog.



The Beyond School blog is the perfect companion for understanding the school of tomorrow, today. Clay Burell publishes Beyond School. I really like what he is doing and writing about. I think you will too.

H. Songhai

A Vision of Students Today

This video was produced by Michael Wesch at Kansas State University for his Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course. If a picture is worth 1000 words, then this video is worth 10,000 sentences.

H. Songhai
11/6/07

Save the trees, try Gcast

A former colleague of mine, Johnny O, once told me that once in a lifetime opportunities come every thirty days, and I truly believe that Johnny's wishful thinking applies to the dozens of Web 2.0 tools that seem to pop up almost daily.

Gcast is but another one of the free and powerful web-based tools that falls into that category. Gcast allows you to make audio recordings and publish those recordings directly to your blog page. It's a very practical tool for publishing lectures, notes, and classroom instructions. Because Gcast is web-based, no paper is required. Try Gcast today. It's free. It's easy and it is very green.


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H. Songhai
11/6/07

K12Online07 Audio & Video Podcasts

Listen, share and learn with designers, thinkers, bloggers and educators from around the world.

This is functional, "just in time" professional development. New directions in 21st century learning.



Below are links to all of the K12 Online Conference presentations.

K12Online07 Audio Podcasts

K12Online07 Video Podcasts

H. Songhai
10/19/07

Skype conference with Maryland 8th graders

Today, six of my Media Literacy students here in Philadelphia, participated in a Skype conference with educator, George Mayo and two of his eighth grade classes in Montgomery County, Maryland. George Mayo is an author, an innovator and one of the country's leading edu-bloggers.

My high schoolers talked to George Mayo's eighth graders about peer pressure, forming good habits and the importance of doing well in middle school. The Skype conference was a big success. My students enjoyed giving advice to the younger middle school students and the middle school students passionately expressed their impressions of it all in series of thoughtful blog posts. Read some of their posts here.

Thanks George, for inviting us to share and learn with your students and for giving us another opportunity to stretch the boundaries of the classroom. Continue to push the ed-tech envelope!

Let's do it again soon.

H. Songhai
10/12/07

iGoogle, Netvibes and Personal Learning Communities

Last week my students created personalized start pages in iGoogle and Netvibes. The purpose of a personalized start page is to help computer users organize their favorite education feeds, podcasts, videos, music and other subscription-content, all in one place. Personalized start pages are free and simple to set up. iGoogle and Netvibes let you create an account with just an e-mail address and a password.











All of my students were asked to add two Google Labs applications to their iGoogle start pages - Google Docs and Google Reader. This year, we will use Google Docs to create and publish a variety of authentic hypertext documents. In the computer world, hypertext documents are more engaging and more informative than handwritten or printed documents. With Google Docs, creating a hypertext document is as easy as copying and pasting.

Google Reader is another powerful web tool. It's an aggregator based on RSS. It allows web surfers to subscribe to only those blogs, news feeds, videos and podcasts that you specify. Whenever a new post is published by one of your specific subscription providers, you get it delivered directly to your Google Reader instantly.

Last week, all of my students added three education feeds to their Google Reader accounts. They added Moving at the Speed of Creativity, Read/Write Web and my blog to their subscription lists. Students will use the feed from my blog to get their homework, take surveys and to collaborate with others. In lieu of textbooks, students will study and read online works from Speed of Creativity, Read/Write Web and other sites. These sights will keep students current with 21st century learning, media literacy and safe digital social networking.

iGoogle, and Netvibes, are at the heart of my virtual desktop. I start all of my web based computing with at least one of those gadgets loaded. When you think about it, a personal start page is very much like a personal learning community and since iGoogle and Netvibes allow you to create tabs on your start page, students can tab and index their learning around the important issues I feel they should know as well as tab knowledge according to their own individual passions and interests.

If you haven't signed up for a personalized start page yet, try iGoogle or Netvibes.
And make sure you check out the K-12 Online Conference 2007.















H. Songhai
10/9/07