Need Motivation?

So I am on Twitter and looking at various posts. I see one about ScreenFlow and decide to Google it. I see a YouTube tutorial and decide to watch it. It is a Mac tool, but I like speaking both languages. So I click on the video above and like wow. Here is one of your students answering a question someone had about how to do something within the program. He is teaching it as well as any of us could. Why do we need to understand the shift in education? Because they can learn and teach themselves anything they want to know without leaving home. When you move from a classroom structure to a community structure- the students become teachers AND learners and so do we. 21st Century teaching and learning is about shifting classrooms to learning ecologies.

Here is another-

Can't get enough? Here is a 7th grader.

Let's quit talking about it and roll up our sleeves and change our classrooms and schools into meaningful learning nodes in our students' network of learning choices.

Comments

[Lisa Parisi]

Great examples. So the question is - for those people who are terrified that if we open up, we will be out of a job - why, if students don't need to leave home to learn, is school still important?

I think we need to start asking how do we help students navigate through all this learning media? How do we help them create it?

[Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach]

Lisa asks...
So the question is - for those people who are terrified that if we open up, we will be out of a job - why, if students don't need to leave home to learn, is school still important?

I do not think that just because kids can learn at home and many other places in their networks that it diminishes the importance of schools, but I do believe it redefines their role. We have to change- NOW.

[Sharon Elin]

Some teachers may jump to conclusions and interpret your ideas to mean students learn just as well without them, which hits them where it hurts. But you're not saying that. It flips convention on its traditional apex to think that students can teach (especially when they can teach the teacher!) or that they can learn in collaborative communities rather than in single-row desks. Yet this is how adults learn in the real world! I'm all for giving students more license to share and explore. We can learn a great deal from them! (But, yes, they need guidance from experienced and trained teachers to focus their paths!). Check out this sixteen-year-old's blog: http://www.webrampage.com/ He knows more than most paid IT staff members in my district. Of course, it would be nice if someone advised him against using profanity in his posts, but this is another reason educators need to get in touch with what our students are doing with their talents. I wonder how many of his teachers review his bog?

[Sharon Elin]

Pardon me, I mean "blog," not "bog"!

[Ms. Mize]

Interesting! Some of realize this but it make take time for us to convince the others!

[Graham Wegner]

Just to throw another thought in here - the examples you show here are demonstrating how students today can teach via the web but the examples feature teaching about technology. How do we take this idea and use this in the re-negotiated paradigm to apply to student teaching about non-tech related learning (sports, art, writing, social studies, health etc.)? At what age is this really feasible? What about the non-connected kids or the kids who aren't switched onto learning from a screen?

Not criticsms - just ponderings? Anyone with definite paths to take?

[Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach]

Graham,
I believe that any area where we allow kids to experiment, research and own the topic they could teach others. Ever had a small child "teach" you something? I have. The point is that teachers can/should learn as much from their students as they are teaching them. Reversed mentorship should be part of the learning ecology we build in our classrooms.

The non-connected kids can still be self-directed in their learning and then choose a medium to share what they learned with the rest of the class. I have been teaching this way for years- long before technology came into its own. Kids use to prefer to use the old, heavy video cameras and VCR tapes to create documentaries or short plays demonstrating what they learned and teaching it to others via the video taped projects.

Howard Rheingold says that the digital divide of the future will be between those who know how to group and collaborate online and those who do not. The clips above are just one way our kids are using collective action to get their questions answered and learn what they are interested in.

[Skip Zalneraitis]

Thank you for the wonderful posting and videos. I have Video Box so I can download from 'almost' any video site, but the links are good.
I found the dialog that comments VERY interesting. I would like nothing better than to be put out of the job I do as I have to do it now, and to have project based learning do it would be perfect!!
BTW,I'm going to buy the product to give my students and me a chance to experiment.

[Alix E. Peshette]

Great video and discussion. I feel such a sense of urgency to change how schools teach 21st century students. The research is all out there to support technology, the students are out there in their personal lives collaborating and creating. Then they come to school into rows of chairs and rules against cell phones and handhelds. I think we have reached a tipping point and change is gonna happen.

"Lead, follow or get out of the way"
Thomas Paine 1737-1809

[Jack E.]

I don't know much but I do know we have to change.... and we have to continue to change how we teach as those we teach are always going to be evolving... I went from teaching students to teaching teachers and I face the same issues..... Teachers are REALLY BUSY ... so my time with them MUST be useful or I will never get another shot.

[Charlie A. Roy]

Our school converted to Mac this summer. We have a faculty of amazing talent but lacking in web 2.0 skills. We've identified some students to serve as aides in the transition. They are pretty stoked about having some great tools at their disposal. We find their enthusiasm is truly motivating our teachers. Looks like a little role reversal.

[Vikrama Dhiman]

Dear Sheryl:

I agree with you. One of such attempt is our portal http://www.wiziq.com/ - we are a leading Web 2.0 teaching and learning platform.

Thanks

[Shannon]

This was such a wonderful thing to read for me. I think it is great that kids are doing this, especially because a lot of there teachers may not be able to. Some people made comments asking whether school seems important to kids or not if they can learn everything at home and teach themselves. I believe that it is. For example, if any of you have ever taken an online class you know that they are convenient and and efficient, though you lose that personal interaction that can help a lot. Therefore it shouldn't be Internet OR school, but Internet AND school. Plus I would rather have kids that know what they are taking about teaching my students about technology, rather than myself who pretends she knows what she is talking about ;)

[Jennifer Filgate]

Video is a great way for students (and teachers) to share their knowledge with the digital community. We should encourage this transfer of knowledge between generations by using educational video sites like www.SchoolWAXtv.com as a platform for this type of educational exchange. This website in particular is designed for school use and all the videos are vetted by educators before being posted. I'd like to see more of these exchanges encouraged by teachers. Providing students with a safe platform to share their expertise is the first step.

[Tim Breuer]

The first video has been removed by the user.