I spent Friday morning with 22 student teachers and a couple teachers from my school. My goal was to introduce them to the world of web2.0, wikis, and del.icio.us. Well 2 out of 3 ain’t bad- I didn’t really get into delicious beyond an introduction. That aside, I think this group of future teachers really understood my point that education is changing and our teaching needs to change too!

The slideshare was my main introduction, and here is the wiki we used. I gave them each a page to play with and used video’s to convey many of the ideas I wanted to get across. I’d like to thank SFU Faculty Advisor and friend John Stockdale for the opportunity.

I’d love to be able to give this message to every student teacher!

“A portal to Connect Classrooms to the World: Global Citizens can Share Talents and Skills with Students. Teachers can find Global Citizens (Volunteers) willing to help in a field of interest that they are working on in their class.”

FieldFindr: Where teachers can meet global citizens with skills to share.

It started with a post and a wiki, and now it has evolved into a Ning Network.

I humbly request your help so that WE can make this happen. After you sign up, this forum post is a great place to start.

Thank you for contributing to this new site!

Amy Capelle has started a very interesting discussion in Ning’s Classroom2.0

She asks, “Are they really digital natives?”

The discussion there is great! Here is my response:

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

“I come from the Batman era,
adding items to my utility belt while students today are the Borg from Star Trek,
assimilating technology into their lives.”

That’s a quote I use to differentiate digital immigrants from digital natives.

BUT I have realized that it is much more about comfort level & exposure than it is about age. While I am helping some frustrated students open a sign-up verification e-mail, other students have logged into the new site, added a photo, and changed the appearance of their personal page.

There are three digital divides here preventing me from effectively using technology in the classroom. (Two from my post, and the 3rd added from this Classroom2.0 discussion.) These divides are the gaps between:

1. What I know and what I need to know.

2. What the school has in the way of technology and what it needs to have.

3. What skills/abilities students enter my class with.

#1 I can change.
#2 will never change fast enough.
#3 is the shift in this conversation.

I have both immigrants and natives in my class, so the distinction is moot.

In another post I said,

“And then there is my class Science Alive! wiki… “I think that I am guilty of seeing the value of using technology in guiding learning, but not effectively guiding learning in my technology use.”

I have done a pretty good job of getting my students going… but now as momentum builds I have come to the realization that I don’t have a marking rubric to guide me, or my students, as we move towards a final product.

My class is assembling a lego model without the instructions, or even the image of the final product on the front of the box. This isn’t a problem for the creative/motivated students; they will assembly a better model in ways that I could never have ‘instructed’ them… but some students need structure, they have been fed it for years and expect it (even from yours truly – this isn’t finger pointing, it is observation).

I let technology supersede pedagogy.“

Digital immigrants or digital natives is nothing more than a discussion of digital competence… it is a spectrum, not a dichotomy!

Where does this leave us?
We want all of our students to be digitally competent.
We want all of our students to be articulate thinkers.
We need to make this happen in pedagogically sound ways.
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Let us go to the very beginning of the whole debate and none other Mark Prensky himself. In his article, Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom, Prensky says:

“…technology adoption… It’s typically a four-step process:

1. Dabbling.
2. Doing old things in old ways.
3. Doing old things in new ways.
4. Doing new things in new ways.”

I think we get excited when we see ‘new things in new ways’, but often we end up (re)creating old things in new ways. The real conversation needs to be around the constraints of curriculum and standardized testing.

“This is why the foundation of education systems today should not be the rails, but it should be the side trips. It should not be the central standard curriculum, but it should be those directions that students, that learners, both teachers and students, can navigate to on their own.” (David Warlick)

New things in new ways… creating articulate thinkers… and building digital competence as a by-product.

After an incident delayed getting feedback from my students until last Monday, things got extremely busy with preparation for the Renaissance Fair and my Grade 5 Transition Retreats [the subject of a future post]. All this included 3 afternoons out of my classroom at other functions… I blinked and it was Friday afternoon. And only now have I noticed that not everyone has given me feedback yet. What I do see there is very encouraging.

Before reading the feedback, my initial impression was given in my Some Assembly Required post. To expand on that,
I wrote this in a comment (over a month ago) on Kelly Christopherson’s blog.

Carolyn Foote, mentioned above also added this comment after mine:

This is brilliant feedback. It isn’t rocket science for a seasoned teacher that really should know this, but scaffolding that is student directed is something we should all be reminded of from time-to-time. I think that in my excitement to get things started, and my desire to have students choose their own topic, I let technology supersede pedagogy.

I intended to put some student feedback highlights here, but I won’t. If you are interested, READ THEIR WORDS.

Here is a very short summary:
• Students really liked this project. Some of them considered it the best ever!
• They loved that they got to choose their own topics.
• They felt challenged.
• They hated the issues we had dealing with crappy computers, and yet they were willing work through the frustration.
• They thought this was a valuable experience… so much so that many of them wanted to do another similar project and/or suggested that I should do this again next year.
• And finally, using their words: They enjoyed being able to share their ideas, “What I am most proud of the most from the page is when I was how I typed out information to let others read it and learn from what I learned,” and being able to see what others did, “I thought this was a great project because it was always fun, and when you needed inspiration, it was easy to just click on someone else’s page, and see all the neat stuff that they’ve done, and then it makes you want to make your page just as good (or, it did for me).” Also another student commented about how a different group’s project touched him, “I learned a lot of stuff over the period of time that was given. I especially enjoyed learning about the diabetes because my aunt has diabetes so it was interesting to see what she goes through and how she’s affected”.
I’m proud of my students and I am very happy with our first attempt at creating wikis. I believe that for many of my students we truly did bring Science Alive!

1. Scaffolding
Here are some comments: [Their words/spelling/grammar, no editing on my part. Students can't edit a Discussion topic like they can their wiki page.]

Since Carolyn made some great topic development suggestions above, I will look more at some other ideas.

I realize now that I didn’t really give them enough of an outline. This is a challenge for topics like this… especially in a middle school where the students are still young. So many times in my teaching career I have shown a creative exemplar to students and then had a dozen photocopy-like replicas handed in. Also, in all honesty, I didn’t really know what to expect from my students and so it was hard to tell them what it was I expecting! I think that if I spent more time getting them involved with their topic and exploring possibilities early on, some of this stress would have been alleviated.
I did a lot of conferencing with groups and discussing ideas, but often I didn’t relate this back to specific things I wanted to see on their page. [Notice the control-freak teacher in me said "specific things I wanted to see" rather than suggestions that would enhance their learning. This is a learning curve for me as well as them.]
One frustration for me was that I taught Science for just 40 min. classes (a first for me this year having taught 80 min. classes in previous years). Take away login and log out times and sometimes it seemed that I would have just 2 or 3 really good conversations about projects and the class would be over.

Here is a very interesting comment:

The specific thing that I didn’t like in this case was that the experiment that they wanted to do had way too much variability and opportunity for chance to influence their results… this group did the experiment they wanted to do it anyway. Although I don’t think it was a great decision, I am glad they realized that I really did give them a choice.

The task at hand is to offer support to those that need it, and challenge those that don’t – not much different than any other project. The difference from other projects is that criteria is very hard to offer when you open up a project and allow everyone to demonstrate their learning in different ways. (Note Gabriela Sellart’s and Claudia Ceraso’s comments on my Some Assembly Required post- found in the reflection section.)

More from my students:

Scaffolding not instructions and criteria lists.

I had no idea how long this project would take. It went longer than it should, but I wanted to give ample notice when I finally did choose a date. Looking back, I gave the students notice on a Monday that it was due the following week Friday, then gave them until the following Monday… a lot of time! Yet, the lack of a stated completion date really seemed to bother students. I would love to see students keep updating their projects even now- why can’t they continue to pursue their interests? However, in the future I will start with a specific due date. Will this light the fire under students’ seats and get many of them on task, and/or more focussed, sooner? I don’t really know?

I had students research who were experts in their fields and intended to have them contact some of these people. Reality sunk in when I realized that I didn’t know these adults and I would have Grade 8 students contacting strangers directly. In the future, I would want to create a specific contact page for field experts to use to contact us. Then I could route initial contact through me. I would also notify parents that this would be happening well in advance of doing it. I think that this could happen in a safe way if it is well thought out, not flying by the seat of my pants as I was doing in this first attempt.
I could also have used some experts of my own. I’ll point again to Brian Crosby’s Learning is Messy post, Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models and once again beg for a Web2.0 service like Fieldfindr. (I created this mock site in February and it has had over 1,200 visits since the middle of March… who can make this a reality?

Imagine giving a ‘C’ to a student who writes:

Is a ‘C’ meaningful feedback? What are you telling that student about lifelong learning? What does the mark accomplish?

…And a Happy Note
I can’t get myself to end this post on a sad note, so I will end with a very positive observation:
This year has been cathartic for me.
• I have fully embraced using this blog as a learning tool since about November.
• I have read more and thought more about education in the last 6 months than in any given 5 years of my life.
• I am embracing technology like never before.
• I am engaging students in their learning like never before.
• I believe that we will see some (very exciting) fundamental shifts in education over the next few years.

…And Back to the Science Alive Wiki
If you have any observations that I may have missed, then feel free to be my teacher. Thanks!

I apologize in advance for the clinical nature of my description below… these are students currently in my class, and this blog is open for anyone to read.

Background: Student 1 is male; Students 2 & 3 are female. Student 1 and 2 ‘dated’ earlier in the year. Student 1 and 3 are good friends… “But that’s all!”

The incident: Student 1 (who is in my first class) does not log out of his Science Alive! wiki account. Student 2 (who is in my second class) goes onto the same computer and realizes that Student 1 is not logged out. She writes a wiki mail message that she addresses to all students in Science Alive! (almost 60 kids in 2 classes). Here is the message:

Unfortunately I was not in class when this happened- I was at a Math Learning Team meeting.

This message got to Student 3 (also in the second class) quickly. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and confronted Student 1 about this – she realized it wasn’t him because at the time of the incident he did not have access to a computer. After coming back to class and doing some more digging, she discovered who sent the message. Then this new message came along:

from	[Student 2]
to	members of sciencealive
date	May 3, 2007 2:06 pm
subject	sorry folks
	i sent [student 1's] message totally sorry! i throw myself on [student 3's] & [student 1's] mercy… it was a bad joke swear i won’t do it again!

I find all of this out the same evening via an e-mail from Student 3. She is very upset!

(A little digression here as I look at what makes something an office issue.)

In 9 years as a teacher I have made very few classroom issues into office issues. I have 4 D’s that I think are issues that should be dealt with at an office level. The first two D’s are cut-and-dry/immediate office issues. These are ‘no-brainers’, you break these rules and you go to the office!

1. Drugs- Alcohol is included in this category;

2. Dangerous- Not just weapons, but physical violence too. The best policy is a zero-tolerance policy… We don’t solve problems this way. (Sorry President Bush, but I’d be sending you to the office);

The next 2 D’s have some grey area between being an issue for the office and being an issue that I handle myself. They are:

3. Defiance- an absolute refusal to participate and/or co-operate. If you don’t come to class prepared to learn, or if you aren’t willing to participate with the class… If you can’t offer me 5% of what I am offering you, then that probably hinders my ability to give everyone else the time and attention they deserve. I obviously can’t help you, so there is no reason for you to be here. I’ve only ever had one student absolutely refuse to engage in learning to this point. I honestly felt that it was a disservice to keep him in the class and made this the reason to send him to the office. (I have used this as ‘leverage’ with other students in the past- not an ideal strategy, but sometimes a student needs to know that you have limits);

and the final ‘D’,

4. Disrespect- If you are going to treat me, or others in a way that is hurtful, if you are going to ‘injure’ others emotionally/socially… then we have a problem. Hitting someone, or physically hurting someone puts you in the ‘Dangerous’ category and becomes an immediate office referral. Disrespect on the other hand is a little different. If you emotionally or socially injure someone then you are defying one or two of our school beliefs : Respect and/or Inclusion.

So why was this act of disrespect an office issue? Because it was bullying! It may not satisfy the dictionary definition of bullying, ‘to use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone)’, but it injured someone’s dignity in a very public way. To me bullying of any kind, like physical violence, should have a zero-tolerance policy. If I dealt with this on my own, then I would be offering a perception that this is easily fixed… and it isn’t. From Nails in Fence (from my Teaching Metaphors):

This act, whether done simply as a joke, or with hurtful intentions, was wrong on many levels, from identity theft with the use of Student 1’s account to social embarrassment of Student 3, (and Student 1 as well). It is cyberbullying because it used technology as the medium to bully.

Next, I changed my lesson plans for Science. It was our last day for the project, (talk about putting a damper on the whole thing), and our school dance was scheduled for the afternoon so I thought this would be a great opportunity to have a lesson about bullying and cyberbullying.

Here is my Daily Agenda for Science Alive!

Once I went over the situation, I emphasized that the issue has been taken to the office and is indeed being dealt with appropriately, and that my lesson goes well beyond this one incident.

Why is this an important step? If I don’t do this, then I am a bully too! I am ostracizing Student 2, and I don’t want to do this! She is a wonderful kid who made a bad choice… “Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone”. I’ve made some very stupid choices/decisions in my life. In the hockey game we call life, I’d like to think that I have a good plus/minus when it comes to good choices I’ve made versus bad, but that doesn’t negate the bad choices as if they never existed. Student 2 made a bad choice, she is not a bad person!

Next in the agenda, I specifically mentioned other times that we discussed similar topics for two reasons, first to further distance my lesson from the specific issue, and then also to show everyone that this is an important issue that needs to be discussed on a regular basis.

Also, rather than having students reading this agenda on their own computer as I have done in the past, I had this on the projector screen, and I did not scroll down enough for students to see that I was extending the due date of the assignment. I wanted them focused.

So, the lesson involved 3 videos from Youtube, with a discussion after each. Here are the videos:

I think the discussions went well in both classes. I think I made students see that there are many faces to bullying… it is a continuum. I tried to convey that the choices they make influence others, whether we intend for this to happen or not. I hope that I helped students to see that we have a responsibility to make a positive rather than negative difference in the world, and that often we can do so with very little effort.

I also spoke of the etiquette around asking someone to dance, and turning someone down politely. I admitted to being turned down for dances many times in my life, and that I appreciated when it was done in a nice way. I reminded them that saying yes to a dance was a 2-3 minute commitment, not a lifetime one. On the other side of the spectrum, 2-3 minutes is an eternity if someone is groping you or touching you inappropriately- you have every right to stop a dance early in that case. This was a ‘light’ way to end a very heavy conversation, without losing sight of the main ideas I wanted to get across.

An important note: What were student 2’s consequences? She was not permitted to go to the dance. Also, on Monday or Tuesday she must report back to the office, along with Student 3, and state whether they have been able to come to an acceptable resolution. If they haven’t, the next step is that they can choose to have peer mediators involved. Barring that, it will become an office issue again, but I’m confident it won’t get to that point.

A side note: Student 3 stayed back after class and thanked me for giving this the attention that I did.

A final note: It would not have been too hard to handle this situation on my own. However, I think that making a very public issue such as this into an office concern raises the profile of such an incident. It validates that such behavior is simply not tolerated in our school!

Here is the write-up for the 2 hour Professional Development seminar that I ran today for 9 dedicated teachers who showed up on a sunny Saturday, after a full day of Pro-D on Friday.

Start Your Own Blog
A practical session that will introduce you to blogging.
You will see how others use their blogs and you will get a chance to create your own blog.
You will also learn just how easy it is to create links, add pictures and even movies to your blog.
Also, you will learn a bit about web2.0 and very easy to use tools that make your time on the web faster and friendlier.

Start Your Own Blog on Edublogs Wiki on Wikispaces

& a blog post with instructions on how to hyperlink, embed images and videos, as well as tag a post on edublogs,

Making a Splash with Your First Post

I did my best to make these resources that could be: a) used by others to structure their own Pro-D sessions; and b) used as a self help tutorial.

… any feedback would be appreciated.

The power of WE: Special thanks goes to a few people who saved me hours of time by helping me out, and by having great resources already built, so that I didn’t have to create them myself.

• Kris (Wandering Ink) for helping me find worthy links for my example page: A variety of bloggers, blogging mostly about blogs and blogging. Kris also edited my ‘Making a Splash‘ post. I hadn’t published it yet so I threw it into a Google Document, where she edited it. We chatted on MSN throughout and then I cut-and-pasted the edited sections back into my post. It was easy to do – especially with our dialogue via chat. A teacher and a former student collaborating, (late on a Friday night), to create a tool for teachers, in a way that was impossible not too long ago… very cool!

• Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis for 10 Habbits of bloggers that win and How to comment like a king (or queen)… both great posts!

• Mike Temple for his blog Edublog Tutorials. This blog linked to another great resource: MSU (Michigan State University) video tutorial. Mike has done a great job with this blog!

Thank you to these people, and all the wonderful people that I linked to in on the wiki.

-This was the first time I tried to do technology based professional development, beyond introducing a few tools to my staff, and I am happy with how things went.

-We only had about 1:45 minutes and this would be a great 3 hour Pro-D. A typical teacher blunder when trying something out of your comfort zone… pack too much in!

-As a mac user, I need to be a little more familiar with a pc lab.

-I really should have them make their blogs first, as was suggested.

-I only got the e-mail address of 4 of the participants and none of their new blog addresses- I’ll have to hunt these down for a feed I created. I think this is a good idea to offer support and community for new bloggers, and I should make the collection of this information more formal.

* I invite feedback on the Start Your Own Blog tools… and I hope that others will find them useful!

Thanks,

Dave.

So I dedicate this post, (my portion of my Papa’s eulogy), to my grandfather, Leon Bernstein, March 24th, 1924 – December 4th, 2000. He really is the best role model for success that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Like many of you, I know this because he told me so.
Papa wasn’t boasting when he said this, he was just
telling you the way it is. If you were to measure a
man by the legacy he leaves behind Papa would come as
big as they get. In this way he is still a giant and
always will be.

Five children, 13 grandchildren, and a growing number
of great grandchildren, currently at 5 and a half,
make quite a legacy for Papa and Granny. Papa called
his great grandkids his Third Crop. Just on Sunday he
told me, “Boy, if I knew my Third Crop was going to be
this much fun, I would have had them first.”

We all miss Leon Bernstein, Mr. B., Dad, or Papa. But
our lives are so much richer from knowing him. Like
many of you here, I never really thought of living
without him in my life before now. Yet, I feel sorry
not so much for us, but for his Third Crop, for my
daughter, who will not get to know him. I speak to you
today to share with you some of the wisdom Papa has
taught me: some wisdom that needs to be passed on to
Papa’s Third Crop.

So here are some lessons or rules that Papa lived by,
rules that made him the Giant we all know.

Rule #1
“Don’t wait for it to completely break before you fix it.”
Papa would walk into your house and see a loose tile
in the kitchen. Two days later, he would show up with
his tools and mend it before it became a problem.
There is an old saying that says, “Kill a snake when
it is small”. Papa never had to deal with large
snakes.

Rule #2
“Stuff happens, just move on.”
Papa never dwelled on bad things, he would just move
on and, “Call that Wally”. I can not remember Papa
being mad for more than five minutes. He knew there
were much more important things to focus on. Like his
favorite sports team, or making sure everyone saw the
beautiful sunset from his balcony. Or just playing
with his grand and great grand children.

Rule #3
“Don’t waste time on stupidness.”
This rule could also be called, “I look stupid to
you?” or the “What de-yass is dat?” rule. Papa didn’t
have time for stupidity. On this topic, Papa was very
expressive. He always used his time and never wasted
it. On the same note, Papa was always fixing things
and if there was a smarter way to do things, or a
short-cut to use, Papa found it. It was usually just
after one of his time saving discoveries that Papa
beamed, and would say, “Man, Papa is a Giant!”

Rule #4
“Enjoy everything you have.”
For Papa, nothing was too small to be appreciated. He
made it an art to celebrate the little things in life.
From his morning coffee and jumble puzzle to a
handmade birthday card from a grandchild, Papa
appreciated all that life had to offer.

Rule #5
“Business is business and pleasure is pleasure.”
Papa had the amazing ability to put on and take off
his business cap. He never mixed the two. He had the
knack of being small town friendly and big business
savvy without ever letting one get in the way of the
other.

Rule #6
“Be small town friendly.”
I remember going to a shopping plaza early one
morning with Papa. A woman walked pass us as we got
out of the car and she said, “Good morning”. Papa
replied, “Good morning,” and then said, “You’re from
the islands.” The woman stopped and looked up oddly at
Papa wanting to know why he thought she was from the
islands? Papa replied, “Because you said good morning,
in a big city like this, people don’t talk to
strangers in parking lots”. Turns out she was from
Trinidad. Papa loved to get to know people. From a
sales clerk, to a door attendant, to a doctor, to a
President, Papa was a magnet that people could not
help but be drawn to.

Rule #7
“Never retire.”
This is what kept Papa young and fun. He didn’t
retire…He became a tiler, a carpenter, a chauffeur, a
landlord, a banker, a fund-raiser, a board member, a
baseball coach, a plumber, a jack of all trades. He
continued to learn and to grow. He did all this
without spreading himself too thin. He did all this
keeping his family a priority, after all his main job
was as a loving husband, father, grandfather, great
grandfather, and a true friend.

Rule #8
“Smile…a lot.”
With us, his second crop, and his third crop too,
Papa could often be found, laying down on the carpet
with kids playing on and around him. His smile would
light you up. He would nap on the floor in a crowded
room, wake up and pretend to be mad for 10 seconds or
so because his grandchildren put hair ties and clips
on him. We would laugh and then you would see a glint
in Papa’s eyes and a smile that was contagious. Papa
was happiest around family and that happiness was
contagious too.

Rule #9
“Take care of your family.”
If I had to rank these rules, this would be number 1
with Papa. From fixing your toilet, to helping you at
the bank Papa was always looking out for you. As I
look around this room, I think I’d be hard pressed to
find a single person that he didn’t do more for than
they did for him. When it comes to family and friends,
he is the best role model anyone could have.

Rule #10
Always remember… “Papa is a Giant!”

Papa B’s “Crop”, July 2007. His third crop count is now 10… and will continue to grow.

I thought I was going to spend the long weekend reading my book for our book club, but I had a Whole New challenge instead: Putting together a million piece puzzle for my kids to play on in our back yard…. swings, monkey bars, slide, fort, climbing wall, and picnic bench all neatly packed in boxes Ikea style… ’some’ assembly required!

Today I was back at school and boy has reality hit! Tomorrow morning our Grade 8 team has to get the ball rolling for our yearly Renaissance Fair (coming in May); Tomorrow at lunch I start training a Leadership Crew to run a Grade 5 leadership retreat/afternoon at our feeder schools; Some time in the next two weeks I have to set up an afternoon to introduce this program to other middle school leadership teachers/admin; I am running a Pro-D session on ‘Starting Your Own Blog’ a week from Saturday and I still have a number of hours work to do to set things up; I have a sleepover fundraiser at the school in just over two weeks; and my kids are in musical theatre plays (playing at alternating performances) this Thursday & Friday night as well as two shows Saturday… yikes!

And then there is my class Science Alive! wiki. As I said in a comment earlier this week, “I think that I am guilty of seeing the value of using technology in guiding learning, but not effectively guiding learning in my technology use.”

I have done a pretty good job of getting my students going… but now as momentum builds I have come to the realization that I don’t have a marking rubric to guide me, or my students, as we move towards a final product.

My class is assembling a lego model without the instructions, or even the image of the final product on the front of the box. This isn’t a problem for the creative/motivated students; they will assembly a better model in ways that I could never have ‘instructed‘ them… but some students need structure, they have been fed it for years and expect it (even from yours truly – this isn’t finger pointing, it is observation).

I let technology supersede pedagogy.

On the bright side, I am a teacher in my 9th year and I’m loving the vitality and enthusiasm my attempts at a 2.0 Classroom have given me. So what if I am out of my comfort zone, as are some of my students. So what if learning is messy. Of course my approach will be more pedagogically sound next time... but as I start putting all the pieces together, I have come to the realization that some things are worth doing… even if some assembly is required!

Feedback and suggestions for the wiki are invited…

—

Images: 050724006lego05 & 050724007lego06 by quadrapop on flickr.

What happens when you:

Allow students to determine what they need to learn, and then enable students to manage their own learning activities?

I recently started a wiki space for my Grade 8 Science classes called Science Alive!

The concept is to let students choose their own topic to explore, and then demonstrate learning on all the levels of Blooms Revised Taxonomy.

It has been exciting starting this project… and scary too!

I have been developing a rather critical blog post, looking at my own attempt at creating and using this wiki in my class. I have told myself time and again that I have bitten off more than I can chew, and that I am expecting too much from my Grade 8’s.

I asked my students to ’start’ looking into their chosen subjects this weekend. Before dinner tonight (Sunday Night) I checked the ‘Recent History’ of Science Alive and saw no changes for the weekend other than one on Friday afternoon. I have to admit to being disappointed.

Well I just came back (at 9pm) and I got to meet Joyce.

So, what happens when you:

Allow students to determine what they need to learn, and then enable students to manage their own learning activities?**

Have a look at what Katie and Sara did this weekend: Meet Joyce.

Originally posted: February 21st, 2007 [Update: Fieldfindr on Ning-October 3rd, 2007]

Here is an idea that has been brewing in my mind for a while:

The site could be sort of a combination of Warlick’s HitchHikr and MySpace or Facebook. (In a way it is more of a matchmaker site.)
You can sign up and log in as a teacher, or as a willing contributer (Volunteer) in you field of interest.

Basically Volunteers create a profile listing talents and skills. Then they set up a time-line of when they would be interested in helping with, or presenting to, a class. Then teachers can contact volunteers who have profiles of interest.

There could be an opportunity for volunteers to contact teachers too, but I think this should be done through a contact page like this, rather than by direct e-mail.

Here is a mock-up wiki that I built to give you an idea of what I mean. (Yes, I know the profile pictures are a bit big, but they were easy to format that way.)

Below the mock-up profiles, I created a space where interested contributors to a classroom could actually post their information. Teachers can find prospective volunteers by searching a particular field/subject.

However, I believe that there is a need for a fully committed portal site that is dedicated to:
CONNECTING TEACHERS TO GLOBAL CITIZENS THAT ARE WILLING TO SHARE THEIR TALENTS WITH A CLASS.

At a dedicated portal:
Tag searches could easily be set-up. (See my ‘Super Tags’ post [coming soon])
Teachers could find other teachers to help them.
Positive relationships between business and education can be formed.
Success stories could inspire teachers hesitant to explore web2.0
Retired teachers or field experts can be tapped into.
There is so much opportunity for collaboration! (I came up with this list in about 3-4 minutes… and I’m sure you could add to it:-)

Once the site is set up, the opportunities and possibilities are endless!
Again, just off the top of my head, here are some kinds of volunteers we can easily tap into…Especially if we had a portal to help us do so.

• A musician or poet who is willing to judge a performance or contest.
• A Researcher willing to share new ideas in their field.
• A Math tutor who offers after school assistance on a forum. (Time differences could actually be an advantage here.)
• A dance instructor could teach ballroom dancing at a local high school.
• A retired teacher giving a video tour of a Boreal Forest or a desert he lives close to.
• An art gallery tour from half-way around the world…

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A similar idea originally came to me a few years ago after seeing this award winning Timebank Commercial.

It came to me again a few months ago when I read this David Warlick Post where David is talking about Will Richardson’s session at MASSCUE:

I finally had to get this idea out after reading these Wesley Fryer and Vicki A Davis posts over the weekend.

Feedback?