TechShare Global Ed Montage

As we prepare for TechShare we've had numerous discussions about Global Education, going out of the box, beyond the walls, integrating appropriate tools that will connect our students and our learning in a way that is authentic, engaging, and realistically possible.

I have a few questions that would be helpful to the Global Montage!

• What are you doing in your schools? Share an example? A picture?
• What would you like to be doing?
• Ideas that you've seen or been inspired by to explore?
• Tools that would assist you in accomplishing your idea?

These are the questions we are asking of the participants when we send them off exploring:

• What does Global Education meant to you?
• How can technology impact global education in the classroom?
• What is your digital footprint on the world? - what did we mean by that?

I would love to have some short anecdotes and pictures, links, to incorporate into this project.

Thanks!!!!

Spring Games

May 28th


It has been a busy spring! In the midst of it all, we have been exploring the concept of gaming in the educational environment. It is an interesting conversation. As with any curricular tool, games need to have a purpose and enable the learners to engage in the subject in ways that create layered learnings. A quick email to our Gaming Group seemed to be an appropriate blog post.

Dear Gaming Explorers,
I’ve been gathering a bit of info since our last meeting (way back in March). Hopefully we will have a chance to gather and continue the discussion, set some clarifications/guidelines, and explore the engaging possibilities.

http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=1762

Warlick’s current blog is on Games for Change, which seems especially relevant given the Global Classroom workshop we attended at Seattle U last week. I have been putting the games on Moodle (hidden at the moment) and will link to the resources from the World Affairs Council. I’ve also done a bit of exploring with second life – though it keeps crashing on my laptop (interesting??) and runs sluggishly on my lab desktop. Discovery Education (United Streaming) has a very interesting blog on Second life http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/secondlife . I have also added to my delicious site resources for exploring Second Life http://delicious.com/vbutler08/secondlife The gaming site is http://delicious.com/vbutler08/gaming_group I’ve added World Affairs to my network and they can be accessed at their delicious site http://delicious.com/globalclassroom

Thanks! Feel free to add to any of my bookmarks. I made a wordle of my tags. If you have a chance play a bit with Wordle http://www.wordle.net/create

Spring Snapshots

Whirlwind! Spring Days! Conferences! Webinars! Moodle-ing! Applications! Projects! Wordle!!!

The past few weeks so many people have been sharing projects that are snapshots of connected learning.

Snapshot from English: Connecting students with their perspective on their own learning styles -A while back, I sent out a link for the “Two Views” project my English 11 kids were working on. In a nutshell, I asked kids to take 2 photos that represent the way they learn; then write text that explains the images and any relationship between the two.


Snapshot from History: Connecting students and their personal family histories using genealogy resources - If you are having success exploring your family's history, then write a 2 page paper explaining the story of one "branch" of your family and how it fits into the historical context. One half of your paper should focus on the historical events of the time and the other half should focus on your family (or family members) particular story.


Snapshot from MS History: Connecting students with Ancient Egypt as virtual persons in the past - Our blog, “Ancient Egyptian Travel Journal,” is aimed at exploring ancient Egypt. Its goal is to come to a better understanding of what it must have been like to be alive back then. One of the best features of a blog is the ability of peers or others who share your interests to comment and, therefore, add content to the blog. The result is that we all get to share our work as well as learn from the work done by others.


Snapshot from MS Math: Connecting students with economics and finances - Student groups collaborate, cheer and moan, as their finances increase or decline. The spontaneous conversations on the viability of a particular stock, short buys, long term possibilities, a greater awareness of the financial challenges facing us today.


Snapshot from the upperschool: Connecting with students on their social network - using the messaging feature on Facebook to help students stay current, it does not require that you are 'friends' but does get information out in connected environment.


Snapshots, just a few of the hundreds that occur each day in and out of the classroom. Snapshots that reach beyond the walls, beyond the school day, beyond our specific subject areas. Snapshots of connections, collaborations, relationships, life, learning.

Snapshot: Wordle found at http://www.wordle.net/

Reflections - organization, conversations, writing

I have been going through an organizational phase - documents, moodle classes, to do lists, tech tracking documents, moving piles of reading material that I know is worthwhile to dip into at some time......


Reflections haven't been in form of blogging these past few weeks but in conversations. I love showing people around our school. Seeing what we do through someone else's eyes affirms the connections we strive to make on so many levels. These past weeks I have spent time with the Digipen representative. We ambled around all the buildings and he noted the art, the music, the spaces, the tone, the dynamic of the students. We talked about the ideas of programming and gaming. How do we make that relevant to the students experiences? Can we let it get messy?

Splashing!

Thanks to Bill, our 6th grade history teacher, I had that extra cup of coffee this morning - straight from BTG! That began the theme of the day - BEDLAM! Bedlam in the good sense of the word - creative energy all over the place! Blogs were the 'fire' of the day - or rather the spark that ignited tons of questions, observations, and opportunities to interact with colleagues. We all learned a bit more and I firmly believe that these will impact our learning much more than we can predict. I also spent time discussing forums for an upcoming presentation by our Dean of Faculty. Again, this provides learners with a place to pause and reflect on the subject matter. Teachers can tap into the thought process of these learners, encouraging deeper reflection or commenting on new ideas. We need to pause and reflect. I need to pause and reflect. What are the best practices? How do we best encourage learning and ownership of this extraordinary adventure?

I am glad it is Friday - as I walk the dog along the lake, I will reflect back on this week and school. With a clarifying pause, I will have my coffee on Monday morning ready to harness that energy called learning.

Jumpin' In

I'm jumping in!! I've spent weeks - maybe months - encouraging others with their blogging adventures. Perhaps it has been years... It's time to share the stories, enthusiasm, successes and challenges! Be it bedlam - with a cup of coffee in hand, one can do anything! Tomorrow morning I'm meeting with a 6th grade teacher to spend some time in ancient Egyptian blogs - he offered coffee or tea for meeting! Students are posting and commenting. The magic of Egypt will be alive for a few weeks and shared with parents and grandparents around the world. What an audience!



That's the point - we want learning to go beyond the walls! My comment on the SAASLibrary Weblog http://saaslibrary.wordpress.com/ sums it up for me and what I envision for every learner.



Each opportunity for people to access information with ease keeps us all moving forward! Imagine an email inbox without those headings…..Has anyone seen….
Remember the first ‘open concept schools’? Extended day schools? Year long schools? Now all of those ideas are no longer boundaried by ’school’ - it is all everyday learning - no limits!



Jumping in....splashing around!

Pushing 'publish'......