Monday, August 11, 2008

Day 1- 21st century teaching and learning

I had a full lab of 17 teachers eager to learn about web 2.0 and teaching and learning in the 21st century. I showed them the "did you know" video and the more recent "we think" and gave them a whole bunch of links to slideshare presentations, websites, documents, articles, and videos.

I'm sure it was overwhelming for many of them, but they were real troopers. They created their own Blogger blog, and subscribed to each other's blogs using Bloglines. I also put together a Moodle course site, but unfortunately it is only accessible from our school. Hopefully next week our tech guys will work out the IP problems and we'll be back online.

A few of the more advanced "students" added a Feedjit or ClustrMap to their blog. Within a few minutes of creating her blog, one attendee reported receiving a comment on a picture of her dog that she had posted-- and it wasn't from one of the other teachers-- it was from someone in Oregon or in India! That quickly!!!

I have really been after them to spend time reflecting, thinking, contemplating, processing, discussing, and then WRITING on their blogs about Web 2.0 and 21st century teaching and learning and how it all affects them and their students. And hopefully they'll visit each other's blogs to continue the conversations.

Tomorrow we tackle CPS clickers, SMART board, Flickr and Picnik. I think they'll have more fun with these than with all the serious thinking I asked them to do today. Hopefully their blogs will reflect that.

5 comments:

Melanie said...

I'm really excited about applying all of this in the classroom! I'm definitely going to be discussing the use of SMART Boards and maybe seeing if I can find a grant somewhere to get one for my room... Do you think that could be possible? I'm also excited about using some safe blogging sites for students with my class- I think they will enjoy the way it uses technology and makes things more interactive.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Your class sounds dynamic. Lucky teachers. If Monday was day 1, how many total days are you teaching? I ask because I have the dubious job of teaching/introducing Web 2.0 to my faculty in 40 minutes!
Linda Mercer
Library Chair
John Burroughs School
St. Louis, MO
http://jburroughs.org/library/index.html

Jim Dornberg said...

Hi Linda. Thanks for your kind words. I'd share our Moodle site with you, but unfortunately, we have tech "issues" that will only allow us to access it internally.

I based my week long workshop on the "23 things" that Wayne RESA did online this spring. If you search my blog you'll find a link I'm sure.

Only 40 minutes to do a presentation?!?! Good luck with that! I think I would focus on the fact that the web is no longer only for "consuming" it's now also for "producing" knowledge, and sharing that knowledge with the rest of the world. You might also want to stress the collaborative aspect of Web 2.0. Take a look at the "We Think" video from Charles Leadbetter. Again, I may have already posted it on my blog, if not, I'm sure you can find it easily on Google.

I appreciate your comment. I've been stressing to our little cohort that blogging is a conversation, but only if you are willing to continue the conversation by adding your comments to others' blog posts.

Jim Dornberg said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jim Dornberg said...

Linda, also take a look at this post that has an excellent Web 2.0 slideshow I found on slideshare
http://edtechupdate.blogspot.com/2008/06/web-20-links-links-and-more-links.html