Reflections from the Trenches

Every time I open my google reader, I have many new posts to look through. I have come to the conclusion that I scan first, decide what I want to spend more time reading, star those, and then mark the rest as read.

One blog post from the Learning is Messy blog alerted me to the fact that the teacher, Brian Crosby, had been video taped as the Teacher Feature on Promethean Planet. He teaches a 5th grade class and I thoroughly enjoyed his use of Active Board, laptops and blog for a lesson.

I though Viki Davis’s article was very good. It was interesting to see her process through which she took the students as they worked on the wiki and then their reaction to the tool. Any time you can get high school kids excited I think it is a good thing.

One aspect of the Wolves Den wiki was the Table of Contents. I can see where that would be a good thing to have. Additionally, I was interested in seeing how they were putting their scribe notes on the wiki. This is something we’ve started in HS but it has not had the impact it should really have yet.

I liked how a couple of the wikis included links to online safety information regarding web 2.0 tools. One such wiki was the Code Blue wiki.

As I was looking over the Room 15 wiki I began to ask myself what was the difference between a typical class website like all of our teachers currently have and the wiki. The one difference I came up with is that the students are involved in posting information as well so that it becomes an “owned” resource.

I’ve already started a classroom wiki, but we have a lot of work to do on it. These examples give me some ideas as to what can be done with a wiki.

I read about the Many Voices for Darfur project on Will Richardson’s blog. It seems that classes from all over the United States are commenting with their thoughts on the situation in Darfur in an effort to raise awareness. This is a great project and a good example of the power of web 2.0 tools and networked learning.

Scribe Posts is a project that our High School has attempted to get going. The only trouble is that the format is not working out that well. I enjoyed reading the blog post that was an example scribe post. It gives me more of an idea of what we need to shoot for.

I also enjoyed reading the Biology blog post about the Georgia drought. It is amazing to me how many kids have commented with their thoughts on conservation. This is a good example of a problem-based learning opportunity.

The read/write web makes it possible for everyone to contribute to the wealth of information that is out there on the Internet. All of a sudden, collaboration goes to a new level. Using these tools to reach across states, countries and continents is an exciting proposition.

The habit that may be most challenging for me is to view problems as challenges. I do a pretty good job of that but sometimes I get very frustrated. Usually that happens when I don’t have a lot of time to sit and think through something.

The habit that will be the easiest for me is to accept responsibility for my own learning. That comes naturally to me since I participated in a collaborative master’s program.

The habit that will be most important is to create my own learning toolbox. I need to have tools that work for me.