I absolutely agree with the other global learners who posted that this was an excellent training. I feel like I have had my eyes open to many things. For example, I had heard the term "skype" before but now I hear it everywhere and actually know what it means. Oprah used skype today to talk to a doctor on her show.
Here is a link to my wiki with notes from the training. http://christinelmac.wikispaces.com/ Dorothy Lo also took some excellent notes, which she posted on the adams14schools google docs.
What continues to blow my mind is the idea that students now in the digital age can do a multitude of things at the same time and also process them all. I am a one track kind of person, I can have many projects going at once but I can only really give my attention to one thing at a time. This revelation that students can divide their attention better than me is making me rethink how I know if a student is engaged.
On this same tangent, I remember a story from npr where a professor banned the use of laptops in his classroom http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040601544.html
I remember when I first heard this I thought, "I can see where this guy is coming from," and now that I have this insight about today's students I feel sorry for him. He could have harnessed this power for good instead of just having them close their computers.
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2 comments:
Christine-
Glad to have you on board and I am thrilled to hear that you feel like you learned a lot. I especially satisfied to hear that one of my heroes (Oprah) was on board with simple and cheap technologies like Skype.
I think the discussion of how these students learn best is just beginning. You get to be a leading edge participant in the discussion.
I heard that same story some time back. The thing that struck me was...what if we do a great job of preparing students for the 21st century and then they go to college and all the classes are taught didactic form? There was an article in eschoolnews a while back arguing that for K-12 to be successful we need the colleges and universities to dislodge themselves from a previous century.
I was totally energized by your new cohort group of GL'ers. I can't wait to see what great things you all will be doing in your classroms next year. Thanks for being a part of all this, I believe we will be making history.
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