This is a good presentation by Michael Walker about blogs and feed readers. There is good information here about how to best use these tools in the classroom. Other presentations like this can be found on the K12 Online 2008 Conference Blog and at the NotK12 Online 2008 home page.
I stumbled upon this interview via my Twitter network. Some very compelling food for thought. How are we preparing and nurturing our students to be creative and thoughtful leaders in the 21st century?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
