So, Jack's comments got me thinking (as the inevitably do):
You know what's weird? We (Zac, Jack, Edna, and soon many others at Phoenix)are communicating more/better through blogging than we have all year -- even though it takes about 20 seconds for me to go to your room. And now we have "others" that are part of Phoenix -- like Paul in New Zealand. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth for this morning.
What is it about blogging that has brought together people who work less than a football field away? The initial answer is the shiny newness of it all. Who doesn't like newness?
Then I start to think about what it does for my students, it gives them a place to publish. Thank you to Will Richardson for putting that into context for me. Though it sounds silly, I think it's true. We're communicating better because the conversation has the potential to be a conversation amongst everyone in the world.
The drive to have the conversation comes from two things:
- The hunger for conversation above the 8th-grade level.
- The need to reach outside 100+ years of isolationist teaching.
Let me add one more...
3. It's fun to learn and feel yourselves grow.
I don't remember where I read it, though I'm sure I've got it bookmarked somewhere, but a novel idea I ran across somewhere was the idea of asking kids "How does your teacher learn best?" for a final exam. It's easy to forget that we do learn.
More later.
technorati tags:phoenixacad, web2.0, blogging, education
2 comments:
My 9th Graders didn't want to leave class today -- even to go to lunch! They were really enjoying working on their Darfur project, and starting their homework (write a comment on my blog). This weekend, please ponder how I am going to have them start blogging in class.
I wish i was is your class
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