Classroom of the future...

When you think of the car of the future, can't you just picture it?

Why is it so hard to envision learning of the future? I believe this paradigm is so foreign to us that it will take much more than a desire for a "laptop for every child."

This paradigm shift involves a shift in the very fabric of our perception of what learning is. Is learning a transmisson from the elder to the young? Or, is learning an organic restructuring of thoughts as the elder and young exchange ideas?

Is learning the repetition of what is known by the elder? Or is learning the "sparking" of new ideas caused by the process our brains experience in the communication of ideas?

What will the future of learning be? I know that it will involve more than a computer screen.

How Do We Change the World?

What a concept....the human voice as a catalyst for creative thought. The written word, still necessary, still valuable, but with the element of the human voice to spark that creativity that the interchange of ideas inspires.

The traditional models of transmission and the receiving of information are becoming too limited for the potential of the human mind....we are beginning to realize that! The human voice reaches the brain in ways that the written word cannot. It lowers affective filters, creating a better environment for creation. Podcasts and webcasts will change that to a more dynamic interchange of ideas as a model of teaching...an interchange that will create NEW ideas rather than a repetition of the transmission.

As students create their own, no longer are learners creating for an audience of one- the teacher- they are creating for a community...now THAT will change the quality of learning.

It is time to see education, not as learning, but as a creation of new ideas.

That is called "Changing the World."

Wiki's here we come!

Well, a wiki would be a genius idea when collaborating with students. It could be used as a forum for ideas or a chance for students to work on projects without needing to be together.

I would use a Wiki to have a book discussion between the students. I , as the moderator, would step out of the process.

Connecting on the Net

I saw that a fellow student had signed up for Bloglines and realized that we have something in commom...I have never met her, nor have we spoken. But, we connected...Social Bookmarking at work!!

I wrote:

Fellow student, Bloglines was so easy to sign up for and to access wasn't it!! I decided to bookmark the Dilbert, too. I love the "Why don't I imagine a better reality?"

So, now we have connected, not through person to person contact, but through Social Bookmarking....interesting...hmmmm?

Somewhere over the Internet

It is a whole new world....I have spent years opening up Word documents, copying and pasting information from teh internet- never knowing where the information came from or how to get back to it. Now, we have Social Networking. I signed up to Diigo.com. Just click, highlight and save and it is done. Not only that...I cna share it...sharing- a 21st century skill.

Here is some of the information from this class that I have copied/pasted into Word...don't ask me where they canme from, I do not know...

My favorite is the last paragraph that mentions how writing/thinking/ reaponding/writing/ thinking has changed the way we communicate....hmmmm....

From somewhere over the Internet.....(copied pasted)

These include blogs, wikis, track-back functions, subscribing
to and managing RSS feeds, podcasting, vodcasting, posting video clips to YouTube or regularly
watching YouTubers’ video diaries, using peer-to-peer networks to share large media files,
online bookmarking, trading on eBay, photosharing on Flickr, and participating in social networks

Web 1.0 is based on a model of producers
and consumers, providers and users, and the provision of discrete
products, commodities, and artifacts. In Web 1.0,
personal websites are static, produced by the people who
publish them, and choice and user activity are largely confined
to deciding what predetermined paths one takes to
navigate a site. The root metaphor for Web 1.0 is the published
page: static, whole, owned, and administered.
In contrast, Web 2.0 is fluid, highly collaborative, and participatory.
Its services and tools link people to other people
with shared interests in interactive, flexible, responsive, and
reciprocal ways. Rather than producing discrete packages for
consumption, companies and projects provide resources that
are enabling or mediating in nature. Web 2.0 reverses the operating
assumption that relatively few will produce and relatively
many will consume. Instead, it is easy for everyone to
collaborate or further their interests.
Whereas Web 1.0 is proprietary, Web 2.0 is much more
open and builds on trust relationships, such as when users
permit others to remix their work.

Whereas Web 1.0 is proprietary, Web 2.0 is much more
open and builds on trust relationships, such as when users
permit others to remix their work. While the static page provided
a metaphor for Web 1.0, flows or streams of data that
can be sampled in whatever size chunks a user wants is the
metaphor for Web 2.0. Web 1.0 is characterized by software
developed by large companies that sell it to customers. Web
2.0 is characterized by “serviceware”: customizable online

Some examples of Web
2.0 services include:
• weblogging service
providers: Blogger,
LiveJournal;
• peer-to-peer filesharing
services:
YouTube, Break.com,
iStockphoto, Azureus.
com;
• social-networking services:
Meetup, WAYN,
MySpace, Facebook;
• wikis and other
collaborative-writing
service providers: seed
wiki, FanFiction.Net;
• collaborative, distributed-
expertise encyclopedia
projects:
Wikipedia;
• online auction and trading services: eBay, barter;
• various search, feed, and aggregator services and facilities:
Google, Technorati, Squeet, Bloglines;
• customizable online radio: Pandora;
• region-specific real-estate valuation and sales
services: Zillow;
• maps and driving directions:Google Maps, MapQuest;
• travel and accommodation user-review and booking
services: Expedia.com, priceline.com; and
• customizable new and secondhand online shops
with user product reviews and recommendations:
Amazon.com.
The Attraction of Web 2.0
In approaching Web 2.0 spaces, the
important thing is to minimize vulnerability
to significant harm without sacrificing the
potential for learning and collaboration.
(http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph) graphs
Blog: A type of website that enables users to post text and photos
in an easily managed way. Posts can be added as often as
the user wants, and the owner can include options for readers
to comment or to track what other blogs links to each post.
Folksonomy: A kind of organic keyword map of content available
on a given website or with respect to an online service.
Folksonomies are folk (as distinct from official expert) classifications
of a body of available content.
Machinima: A word made from combining—with a misspelling—
machine and cinema, machinima refers to the practice
of making movies using role-playing game engines.
Mashup: Combining existing content or applications in a new,
useful, and innovative way that was unplanned for by the
original creators.
Permalinks: The full and permanent URL or web address of
each blog post. This means that even when a post is archived
it can still be linked to, read, and discussed by other bloggers.
Podcast: The regular posting of digital audio files, to which
interested others can subscribe and receive automatically,
using RSS feeds and a subscription-management service.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication): A set of codes used to establish
a subscription feed for a blog. The code allocates a syndication
address that automates the delivery of new posts to
subscribers’ e-mail inboxes or to their blog RSS feed readers—
Internet or desktop-based software applications that automate
RSS subscriptions (e.g., Bloglines).
Social software: Designed to encourage like-minded users to
create content, share content and ideas, and collaborate on
projects or content development for the network in order to
participate, interact, and make connections between things
and people.
Tags: Descriptive metadata in the form of key words people
choose for describing, summarizing, or capturing elements of
items or artifacts presented on the Web. A classic example is a
photo of a baby dog that is tagged as both puppy and cute.
Collectively, tags or key words generate a folksonomy.
Trackback: A feature built into some blogs that enables readers
to track what other blogs link directly to a particular post
on a given blog. Tracking links can help readers map networks
of participation in a given topic.
Vodcast: Just as podcasting handles audio clips, vodcasts
comprise video clips pertaining to a set of topics, themes, or
content made available to subscribers on a regular basis.
Wiki: A website that allows users to add, remove, and edit
every page using a web browser. Wiki is Hawaiian for “quick.”
With blogging
and podcasting, students are generally approaching
traditional problems by refashioning and synthesizing them
into new forms. This can involve thinking at higher levels of
Bloom’s taxonomy, and this type of critical thinking is often
not encouraged in classrooms where the focus is on memorizing
and regurgitating content on cue. Blogging and podcasting
are often perceived by administrators as controversial uses
and relevant. Teachers should encourage students to make
personal connections with studied topics and to synthesize
ideas by engaging in higher order thinking. For example,
students can interview others during podcasts and tackle
real problems within their community that likely do not
have clear solutions.
Get everyone involved
many schools, where accountability
pressures for state-mandated test performances are high,
teachers can sometimes postpone projects and hands-on
learning experiences that don’t seem to readily and directly
support didactic test preparation. This can lead to bored
students, who are disengaged from the educational experience
and result in discipline problems the teacher has to
The blogging recipe requires reading first, then thinking, then writing and linking, then publishing, and then reading some more. It is writing that is born in ideas not experiences, because while we can reflect on experiences, ideas are where we do the heavy lifting, the real social construction of truth that these new media require. I blog, you read, you think, you blog, I read, I think, etc…and in doing so we push each other’s vision and idea of truth in whatever matter we’re writing about.

In the Classroom- Literary Blog

As a virtual teacher, we do use the internet as our major teaching vehicle...but...the question remains...how do we use it as a 21st Century teaching tool? What do I mean by that? How do I use it to not only give information, but how do I use it to help the students use higher level thinking? I want them to synthesize information at a higher level, rather than just respond to answers. The greatest and most lasting learning comes from students working to create and synthesize old learning into new solutions.

Also, just the fact that others, not only your teacher, will be reading your information and creation, there is a different, more intense motivation to create well. The fact that there is an audience raises the quality of the product.

I would like to teach higher level skills in reading comprehension using Web 2.0. My Parisian Literary Blog was meant to give students a chance to respond, in a "text to self" mode, to the places I visited. I wrote about genre and about the places that these fictional characters lived in. No longer was the Seine River that Javert threw himself into (Les Miserables) just a river....it is now real...in their minds....they can see it in their mind's eye, thereby increasing reading comprehension.

My first Blog!

Oooooohhhh...I am a proud mama!! Please visit my first "baby" blog at

www.gypsyteacher5.blogspot.com

I created the blog in the wee hours of the morning after my daughter and I had visited literary sites throughout Paris. The front desk rep. at the hotel and I became friends...he saw me working in the lobby every night. Ibrahim would bring water and "chocolat chaud" (hot chocolate) to bleary-eyed, determined me...determined to get that blog right! So, we talked in the lobby- empty of the touristy sounds, as I uploaded pictures and wrote my essays.

Aaahhh..who ever said the French were not friendly?

Web 2.0?? What is that?

So, I started out...What in the virtual-web-world is Web 2.0? That is why I took this class. I know there is so much out there to use in teaching- so much to promote the idea of teaching as an experience, as a creative endeavor, rather than teaching as strictly an input of ideas....but where is it..and what is it..and what do I do with it? Hmmmmmmm.