Vision-+Jim+P

Back to Teacher Planning

It is important to understand that digital natives (students) continue to learn and explore beyond the school day. Although learning beyond school walls has occurred for the past century, the more recent transformation of the participatory web has enabled individuals to expect to be able to learn as both a receiver or knowledge and as a creator and contributor of information. The misguided notion of the tool being a major part of the answer to help improve student achievement, motivation and ultimately, higher level analysis, is one that I mistakenly believed in for may years as an educator. Learning with technology is a more appropriate course. New and improved technology changes everyday. It is incumbent upon teachers, students, parents, and the greater community to find ways to support the technology as a tool to support learning. The ideal setting will extend beyond the school day, where students will be engaged in meaningful and authentic learning that will help them now and in the future. A teacher will act as both a giver of knowledge and a facilitator in developing authentic projects. Students will be responsible for shaping their learning and being able to deviate from the regurgitation of material, as this will be a more memorable and authentic learning experience. I think back to learning that I remember most as a child and in other facets of life and it is always when it can be put in context of real-life examples, such as when I participated in a Model United Nations group to debate world issues with international studnets on topics such as nuclear disarmament while in high school. .

I envision a school or class where projects and topics are shared across different subjects. Students can work on learning the physics of roller coasters by using online and in class tools to replicate similar tasks. They can then complete a detailed collaborative spreadsheet coming up with their own categories to compare finding different roller coaster data. Students can then build a collaborative wiki or website where they share their data. In the meantime, a group podcast elaborating upon physics used could demonstrate part of their knowledge. The greater audience that they will be displaying this to can also play a pivotal role in how vested they are in such a project. Similarly, students can become owners of a travel business to learn about different cultures for a social studies class and make a shared site or wiki. They can use MS Office or web-based publishing programs to make brochures, while making engaging podcasts when they go home. At the same time, they will learn how to share web-based sites to become better researchers while highlighting and sharing annotations on any computer in the world. IF they travel to another country, they will share their experiences as a project for a class. Students will learn to become responsible digital citizens and better able to search for accurate information when the technology is modeled appropriately by teachers. We would not give the keys to our car to a teenager and let them drive it across the country without a few good test drives. Why should it be different when they use technology? Students should be able to have a video conference using Skype to learn about issues related to hunger, poverty, etc. and understand that they have the capacity to shape the world now and in the future.

Why do we use technology for learning? Increase student mastery of objectives

What do we want to accomplish by using echnology? Higher leve of learning..

How do we want technology to support student learning? 24/7

Any time to increase student learning
 * When should technology be used?**

Teachers should incorporate technology
 * How do we want teachers to incorportate technology?**

external or internal people; time constraints can't do it by teaching a few course after school ongoing and very strong program. Cocahing and modeling or how to redefine our schedule.
 * How will we perpare and enable teachers to incorporate into the learning process?**


 * What will we See that will demonstrate that our goals are being met (how will we assess)?**

portfolios and quick assessment of content knowledge can they compete with other schools. Purposeful way to demonstrate. Virtual campuses have a broad-based scope of