You can go to the K12Online page or to Chris’ wiki page.

To put it simply… there is something here for everyone!

Description
This presentation takes participants along my journey into integrating 2.0 applications and “21st Century Learning” into my pedagogy. The presentation will show how teacher driven assignments and projects teach students some of the skills they need to use these new technologies to enhance their learning. Scribe Posts, Growing Posts and E-Portfolios will provide participants with three different activities to do with their students. The final part of my presentation takes participants into “unprojects”. Participants will learn how to create “unprojects”. For the veteran teacher who is using 2.0 in their classroom this is for you. See how students are more creative and show more enthusiasm towards assignments when they are in charge of their learning.

This is where the future of education should be heading… Kudos to Chris Harbeck!

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Unfortunately I will not be participating in the CUEBC Conference with Will Richardson. He comes all the way to my neighbourhood and I have to miss him! Fortunately I am missing this so that I can help out at a Student Leadership Retreat with my school. I have run these camps for many years (and have resources to share). This year I am helping out rather than leading. I look forward to this, and I hope to learn a lot with the advantage of a different (less stressful) perspective. Joni, is a great leader who truly lives by the mantra I borrowed from Dave Sands, “I teach leadership not followship”. I wish I could do both events, but at least I am doing something that I will enjoy and learn from. You can do the same by heading to one of Chris’ links above.

Originally posted: October 18th, 2006

Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:

It’s all about empowering students to be responsible for their own learning… whether teaching them content in a class, having them explore an area of interest, or having them run a school-wide activity as part of a leadership program.

Chris’s comment on this post said,

Thanks for visiting the presentation. I hope you can use the tools with your students. You will find that when students have creative control over how they present information they rise to new levels of learning. Have fun.

Chris make it interesting

Here is his unprojects presentation:

4 comments on ““Release the Hounds” by Chris Harbeck

  1. Ok, you got me. I am supposed to be doing other things (important things, too). I went through the whole of Chris’s presentation, then headed off on some great tangents, like the brilliant Warlick post about School 2.0 (complete with diagrams): http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/archives/909 “Students stop being mirrors, and instead become amplifiers.” That’ll stick with me. Chris’s slideshare presentation with his students at the Pan-Canadian Literacy Forum was wonderful, too. I am most impressed by his students awareness of their own learning journeys. How cool is that? As Chris said, “they are in charge of their learning”.

  2. I’m with Jan – I have to make sure I read your blog when I have ample time to spare!

    I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t had the students in my class use powerpoint until two weeks ago, and despite the fact that some students had never even heard of powerpoint, they took to it like old pros. Upon watching Chris’ presentation and reading this post, I’ve realized, luckily, that I’m actually not too far off the unproject idea. I do have a bit of anxiety releasing my control, however – partly because I feel like I’m losing control (but actually I’d be paradoxically gaining more).

    I envy you working in a middle school (you do, right?) – I feel I have an extra challenge working in a k-7 school when it comes to technology. I’ll be following your blog while I do my masters over the next few years for inspiration. Thanks in advance!

  3. Jan,
    As I type this I’m taking a break from something important that I need to do (and it is after midnight)… it seems I’m always taking ‘learning breaks’ these days! I’m not sure if I can remember in recent history when I had “ample time to spare” as Tracy says. Chris’ slideshare has stuck with me for a while now, it was great to go over it again when reposting this. Also, I love the Warlick quote thanks!

    Tracy (tgidinski),
    I think the hardest part of all this ‘new stuff’ is the letting go of control… power teachers have held on to for too long, but also power that is hard to give up. You hit the nail on the head with the paradox- “Let go in order to achieve.” (A quote from my leadership bible: The Tao of Leadership.)
    If you are interested in what you can do with K-7 students check out Kim Cofino, in fact I went to here blog for a link and sure enough her most recent post is, “Students Teaching Students” a project she is working on with Grade 5 teachers.
    It seems like you are doing some really neat things in your class… don’t beat yourself up about not using one or another tool. Powerpoint can be great and it can be a nightmare as students ‘shoot you to death’ with an abundance of ‘bullets’. Remember DESIGN Matters.

    …and that concludes my break. Thanks for the comments!

  4. Thanks for the reviews. Kids when they want to do work create amazing things. Sometimes it is us as teachers that provide the roadblocks. When I came up with the idea of unprojects it was to step back and let the kids be the driving force behind the project. I became the project manager, working on time management and tech support. Even with this role it was the students that ended up helping each other that were the best teachers in the classroom.

    Please everyone give yourself permission to let the kids loose and you will be pleased with the results.

    Chris

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