Multi-faceted Refractions

Normally, I do use this blog to advertise for connections. However, we were hoping to connect one of our Senior History electives with another school via the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Challenge 20/20 project. The Challenge 20/20 project creates connections between classrooms around one of the 20 problems outlines in J.F. Rischard’s High Noon: 20 Global Problems to Solve in 20 Years.

We are looking for a school(s) who would want to collaborate on a unit project with our Senior Economics class which will be held in the second semester. We were unable to submit this project, since the Challenge 20/20 projects need to be completed by January 2008 and this class rums from January 2008 to June 2008.

Our economics teacher, Tim Curren, initially wanted to pursue the War on Drugs challenge in his course, although we may be able to negotiate a different problem to have the students collaborate on.

Please contact me if you would be interested in such a collaboration.

At the Global Collaborations session, there was a librarian who was with a team from her school, the University School in Normal, Illinois, who created a wiki for the team to capture their notes from the conference. I had the chance to meet with her at lunch and found out how to access their Memphis Musings wiki. Thank you to the librarian, whose name I forgot to ask, for creating this great resource.

[Live Blogged - please ignore misspellings and awkward phrasing]
[Simul-blogged on Multi-faceted Refractions - my home blog]

Julene Reed

Why Global
Referenced World is Flat and A Whole New Mind

Students need to be global communicators
Workplace requires global collaboration, project based activitities

Engages and motivates for authentic experiences. Promotes creativity and empowers

Use Challenge 20/20 from National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)

Global relationships are important in the classroom of today.

Educators want to know:
1. How do I find projects?
2. How do I find partners?

Referenced her del.icio.us resources

How do you use networking tools to develop personal learning networks

Resources
My Wonderful World - National Geographic
The Globe Program - science focus
iEARN
Global SchoolNet
Think.com
Kathy Schrock
Global Voices
Global Awareness
Kidlink
ePals
Gloriad - Tennessee focus
Kids World
Kids Around the World

Create Websites for Creative Blogs
GRIST - blogs about

Google Apps

Highlighted Rock Our World

Used Polycom for video conferencing, now using simpler conferencing over IP using web cam

Jane Goodall Institute

Apple Learning Interchange - Gayle Berthiaume with an early education focus

Roots and Shoots - about $25 per year

Second Life

Global Education Ning

Laptop Learning Ning

One World Youth Project

KarmaTube - Great things for the world

Flickr

Resources - homepage.mac.com/julener
Del.icio.us - del.icio.us/julener

Technorati Tags: laptopinstitute, laptopinstitute07, global, collaboration, globalcollaboration

Jonah Howland
English Department
Urban School of San Francisco

[Live Blogged - please ignore mispellings and awkward wording]
Was a skeptic, but now sees many more advantages than the problems that they had.

Skeptical that students are not as different, maybe more changes in media.

Students practice acquire knowledge and make sense of it, just the media has changed. Subject is the same. Geometry, Languages, History have been around for a long time. Enterprise of teaching and learning remains the same.

The online written conference
Has used for five or six years.

The Hub and Spoke Humanities Class
Most of learning is transacted to inward, radial, teacher very much in the center.
Teachers model, prompt, tease, interrogate, and direct traffic
Good enough for Socarates
Students as acolyte.

Builds rigor and accountability.
Safe and contrived, like fishisng a stocked pond with a guide

Other problems occasioned by the conventional architecture
Primary on quickness, extemporaneity
Solution - group projects
problem - accountability and balance of effort

Schism between the relative informality and structuredless verbal schange and what is expected of students in writing
solution - in-class writing, journal writing
problems - futher entrenches hub and spoke structure
generates mounds of material for teacher’s one-on-on assessment and response

Solution - Online Written Conference

Example (American Romantism) - need to slow down, observe, and reflect and respond. Facilitating goal.

Record an observation. Read and respond to all classmates in the group. Rethink and rewrite their own piece. Want to have conversations of information not discussed in class and interests them. Make connection between seemingly disparate parts.

Advantages
Primacy on reflective staying power, appetite, and insight
Students are accountable to one another in the building of an end-product
A kind of intermediate practice in composition - neither discussion nor essay writing but helpful practice for the latter.
Standards for strong work are set and communicated through the exchange.
Teacher’s function - combination of Adam Smith and Alan Greenspan

Allows for development of their own voice.
When students need guidance, teacher can give

Uses First Class - Use of conferences
Has course expectation - all online.

Similar to threaded discussion or forums at various other products.

Asking student to take risks with help from their peers.

Showed examples of student work.

Howard views the conversation as little as possible and as much as necessary. Will look at the paper turned in at the end.

Does build in time to bring in important threads brought up by the students. almost every week.

Big books hard to teach with demands of students. But use conference as a support group to help students get through the book.

An espirit de corpes that is built between groups.

Challenges and complications:
Timeliness and accountability to each other - ease of access is helpful.
Works best organically, it should generate its own momentum
Setting and maintaining reasonable expectations
Hard to summon authenticity, light social engineering is helpful [ seprarating friends to create mixed groups of grade level and ability
Monitoring if you make it too much of your job. Have to find balance

Key - What are the Learning Goals?
This is the key to success in all aspects at the Urban School

has given domain evidence of provocation.
Clear informed, purposeful writing
Grasp of larger meanings and implications of the essential questions and concerns of the material
an openness to the ideas, concerns and needs of others

Advocacy
A less teacher-centric classroom. Was in-class and individual, now a third
Student testimony tends to favor this activity, but is a lot of work
Richness and range of inquiry in formal essays and projects is greater
Authenticity of learning and propriety ethic
A democratizing and metastasizing experience

Useful axioms
Play with the prospects - try it out, see how it works
Attend to the effects as well as the affects
Student feedback is telling
Keep your eyes on the learning goals while making adjustments to your pedagogy.

Technorati Tags: laptopinstitute, laptopinstitute07

[Live blogged using note taking capabilities of the new tablet. Really excuse the spelling errors and awkward phrasing]

Alice Bryant

Harpeth Hall School

 

Presentation (old school)

 

Has done presentation

in Photo Story

 

Has created a PowerPoint

 

 

Has attended Internet

for Libraries

 

Rutgers presentation

and research. she will shave.

 

Has.

 

Past

 

-students go

through.

 

 

Present

Now work with teachers

 

 

 

Future

 

Student Focus

 

Main focus.

 

Meet the needs of our students.

 

 

old model -Create a

web quest. Librarian

 

did work, handed

off and didn’t get

 

to interact with

 

students or teachers

 

huge gap with

 

many problems.

Not a baby sitter.

 

Now just teach

students and teachers.

 

More than a single

 

perspective.

Authentic assignments

allow for greater learning

 

 

Use a constructivist

approach

knowledge building

 

 

 

Reflection is critical

 

Need to develop an

 

assessment cycle

 

as part of collaboration.

Rutgers asks, Do they

learn anything? -Ross-todd

 

 

two kinds of students

Additive

Integrative

 

Working transformative’s

More kids additive than

integrative (reflect, assess, monitor, and guide)

 

Showed example How to change

%ography to Bio Poem put on board then forgot

 

Tried it again, with

guiding questions.

Created a Bio poem

lots of description

retained more

Shared

Goals

Vision

Trust

Respect

Assessment

Reflection

 

 

 

What is different now?

Time

Respect-knowledge

A Team approach

 

 

Acknowledge don’t know everything

Collaboration

 

-Meet the person

where they are at

 

-Develop relationships

 

-Take the Time

 

-stress skill Development

 

-use Technology to help Integrate

 

Not much work with

 

web 2.0

 

5th grade -Biomes project

Ecology project

States Projects

 

take something from

nature. Find web site

use Noodde tools for

citation.

Then work on photo story

 

 

6th Grade Geography Project

AGirl Named Desire

Created powerpoint

challenging books

information. Use

 

Follett Destiny

 

library resources/

Web resources from card

catalog.

 

Noodle tools changing

 

on July 25th

 

 

 

7th Grade.

Used one note to

organize. Can

Share notes with others

 

 

Us -Japanese Gardens

 

Read Samara’s Garden

 

Most made Gardens

 

Had to defend garden design.

 

Make connections with “public library

 

 

Important to create relationships

 

 Note taking and text recognition did a reasonable job. Once I get mine and will have more experience, it will be a better experience.

 

Technorati Tags: laptopinstitute, laptopinstitute07