I choose to use this video as a discussion point for this blog entry as I feel that brings up some aspects of education that I feel strongly about. Maybe because I was the kid in class who was better at subjects like Art, Drama and English. It became clear to me early on that this wasn't as highly coveted as being strong in other subject areas. It probably didn't help that I received comments from my teachers on my report card such as " spends too much time looking out the window"or "spends too much time in class talking". How do you teach your students who are chatty day-dreamers?
Perhaps your chatty day-dreamers are the ones that need an engaging classroom experience the most and will respond most eagerly to creative, constructive activities.
If I was to take just a few things from this excellent lecture from Sir Ken Robinson, it would have to be the thought that I would like to strive to create an aesthetic classroom one in which my students are "fully alive" with all their senses engaged. I would love for my students to be divergent thinkers, where they have the ability to see lots of possible answers and in order to facilitate this kind of classroom I need to remember that "great learning happens in groups".
With my background as a Drama teacher I would like to think that I already had a good solid basis for this type of teaching. How then do I use these skills in a classroom with desks and no built in practical component? Technology allows us a world of possibilities.
New media became part of the Drama curriculum a long time ago, it was more a matter of finding of the resources for the students to use. Now however most if not all of our students have access to computers and the Internet and are connected in many other ways also. I'm very lucky to be in a well resourced school where the students have access to a wealth of software and hardware to make all of their media dreams come true.
What am I going to do about it? I hope to create learning experiences where students can be in charge of their own learning through well structured units of work that allow for original thought and a plethora of questions. I would love each of my students to have a voice, not just the noisy ones. Using blogging tools, video construction tools, podcasting, animation and game development I would like my students to explore the curriculum.
A wonderful group of year 8 boys have started a game development at lunch where we all play with Scratch and try to learn about how to create simple games. The most wonderful part of this is seeing how collaborative this workshop is. One students will find out how to do something and peer tutor the students sitting next to him. They relish the opportunity to remix each others work.
Next year I hope to to use Quest Atlantis in the classroom now that I have finished my teacher training. Allowing my students the opportunity to explore content through the eyes of their online avatar wandering around another world. This learning experience has turned from something that could have been on the pages of a text book into an immersive experience.
Another wonderful tool I would like to use in a more creative way is the ClickView Live set up we have. Students could each create a live newscast as a way of using those higher order thinking skills. The challenge will be not only to synthesis the information but also to present it for live casting around the college.
At this point in time I don't know what role I will have next year. I would love to be a Teacher Librarian with the focus on technology integration but I know that it really depends which school you get as to how much time you will have to focus on your areas of interest. I would also really love to still have a small teaching load so that I can try out all of the wonderful things I learn from my PLN.
Recently I attended a technology integrators conference and really expanded my network. This is something that I will focus on in the future, not only keeping up with my networks blogs and Tweets but also making an effort to contribute so that other teachers can remix and refine my ideas and use them with their students.
Through out this course I have seen the importance of being a voice within your school. We are very lucky to be teaching in a time of great change in Australia. The National Curriculum and also the need for school policy documents around the use of digital tools has opened up the lines of communication in schools. It's a wonderful time to ensure that your voice is heard and that your students will have opportunities to participate in the world of web2.0. I have learnt that censoring social networking and other content sharing sites may not be the best answer within the school setting. These tools can be used to enhance teaching and learning.
I look forward to trying to use Twitter in the classroom. Jeff Utecht who did the keynote on day two used the back channel at the AIS ICT conference last week to engage all of the day-dreamers in the room. See the embedded tweets in the right hand column. I had a wonderful time Tweeting some key comments that contributed to some great discussion. I hope to transform my classroom to a room where each student is engaged and can find a medium to have their voice heard. Exciting times ahead.
I just posted a blog that mentions this Ken Robinson 'animate'. It was shown at our staff meeting and my colleagues were overheard discussing it over the next few days. I thought it was excellent - it was the first presentation of Ken Robinson's teaching I had seen since the TED talk on How schools kill creativity (or similar) which had quite an impact on me years ago.
ReplyDeleteLike Nadia, I have been at several conferences and seminars where a Twitter back channel was used. Some of us loved it and participated happily. Some didn't - I particularly remember one presenter commenting he found it rude, and felt it distracted the audience's attention from his presentation. The fact he perceived us as an audience, as opposed to participants was telling. Learning is no longer teacher centric, with the 'information' being transferred from the teacher at the front to those who need to learn it, usually seated in front of them. In more constructivist approaches to learning the students learn from each other, and build the knowledge together. Social Networking sites, e.g. Nings, lend themselves well to providing the environment for this collaborative learning to take place. Certainly no need for the 'students' to even be present in the room. Very much a case of 'knocking down the walls', an expression I've borrowed from Alec Couros used in his slideshare found at http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/a-tweet-and-a-poke-how-educators-harness-the-power-of-social-networks
Posted by Christine from Cyberbuzz (http://cybersharpsheperd.blogspot.com/)