Chris Craft from Crucial Thought and his sixth-grade students have come up with a brilliant project, called “Teach Jeff Spanish”. The students are creating videos to help teach Jeff Corwin, (and anyone else who would like to follow along) Spanish.  These motivated students have created their first episode and I have to applaud their work. Keep in mind, as you wander over to Teach Jeff Spanish, that these very motivated students created this with very little help from their teacher. YES! That’s what learning is about! My students, who are involved in a collaboration project, Global Explorers, with students from Colombia, (South America) will definitely follow this project, as we all the help we can get with our Spanish!

Fantastic job and we are anxiously waiting for the next episode!

teachjeffspanish

When school lets out for the day, children are bombarded by parents with the famous question, “What did you do in school today?” In which most children glumly reply, “Nothing.”  Well not today and not my students. My students have been taking part in my thesis research on international collaboration. The Global Explorers have been connecting and collaborating with a group of students in Bucaramanga, Colombia through podcasting and a wiki. Today these students connected on a closer level. For 1 ½ hours, 46 students in Michigan and 46 students in Colombia taught each other words in their native language, discussed authors, sports, weather, hobbies and money. Using Skype and webcams, these students had the experience of a lifetime. They talked, questioned, laughed, and cheered. They were still talking about the conversation long after the computer was shut down. In the words of one student, “My parents ask me every night at dinner about my day and what I did in school. This can’t wait until dinner. I can’t wait until I get home to tell them I talked to kids in Colombia!”

The fire has been lit!

Skype Video call 11/14/07

Today at our county-wide inservice I was able to participate in an all-day workshop with David Warlick. I will blog more about this later but here are some notes and links to check out for now. I will say this- Excellant presentation! Awesome day!

How can you effectively provide content when the walls are down?

Most of us grew up in schools that prepared us to work in straight rows, perform repetitive tasks, under close supervision

It is no longer that future for our students now. Our students no longer look at their parents and see their future.

Our culture can carry our information and communication with us

In 2003 we generated 5 exabytes of new info

5 exabytes in Library of Congress X 37000

Only 0.01% of that info is printed

We need to start teaching students to learn digitally not with pen and paper

We are preparing our students not for my future but for their future

Students are being insulted by learning in a 19^th century classroom

Students of today carry conversations with them. They have tentacles that reach out to those connections.

Most info we will need in 10 yrs will be digitized. If they do not have access then it is though they cannot read.

Will students learn formal language with imspeak?

We should be amazed at students who invented this language.

We should not teach them how to write but when to use imspeak and formal language.

Wombat= waste of money, brains, and time

We look at information as a product. Something we consume.

Students see information as raw material. What can we mix it with to create new information?

Take content off of the internet and create new info.

What do you hope that person knows that empowers them to tell me what to read? What does it mean to be literate?

Students need to be prosumers of information.  We need to raise discriminating prosumers that can discriminate and tear apart info when gathering.

For the first time in history, our job as educators is to teach our students for an unknown future.

Stop integrating technology and integrate literacy.

Teach our kids how to teach themselves.

We were taught to read what was handed to us. This was literacy. Our students are reading in a global electronic library. We need to be literate in this new information environment

Find the info

Decode it

Critically evaluate it

Organize it into personal digital libraries

Arithmetic expands into employing information

We need to be effective readers and learners, as well as producers of information.

We are now able to be part of the global economy and flat world.

If all you can do is communicate in writing it will be without value if no one chooses to use it.

Writing expands into Express ideas compellingly

We see technology. Students see information.

What is it about the elements of a video game that is so compelling, that we can bring that into the classroom and our teaching?

 Handouts are found here:

 http://davidwarlick.com/wordpress/?p=206

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