Wednesday, December 17, 2008

One of the coolest days EVER

Today in my 2nd block class we discussed the goal of education. My 2nd block is an epistemology class of juniors and seniors, and we always have some pretty amazing conversations, but for this one, I wanted more people involved, especially some of my colleagues, so I sent out an invitation to the staff inviting anyone that had that period off to come in and join us; then Tonia gave me the fantastic idea of using Coveritlive.com as part of the class for those who couldn't be there... it was GREAT! I had a student doing the blogging as we talked, and I recorded the conversation for podcasting later as well (yeah, I was totally and completely geeking out). The only downside was that Blogger didn't post up the whole conversation, so the comments of those who participated didn't show up- they were on a sidebar that got cut off. Another very strange thing is that when you look at the page itself, the blog appears to be in Latin; now I'm working with some of the best and brightest in the school, for sure, but we're not exactly fluent in Latin... I'm not that good! Fortunately, once you click on it, it goes to English, so it's really not a problem... it's just odd.

At any rate, there is a transcript of the class discussion and a podcast (Dec. 17), so anyone can listen in that wants to. I'm actually thinking of making that a regular part of the class now. It was a way cool way to dissolve the classroom walls, and I want to do it again. Dave is going to let me use a projector tomorrow as well, so that way the students can not only see the question posted, but they will also be able to follow along with the live blogging discussion.

Actually, since we didn't get to finish our conversation, we plan to continue it tomorrow. I will happily post up the link to it here and anyone who wants to join us on Coveritlive is welcome to do so. The class conversation will run from 8:45 until 9:15 or so. Come join us!

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