Today I am blogging from the ASCD conference in Galveston, Texas.  Dr. Alan November is speaking about the need to teach students skills for acquiring information and communicating globally.

  • No sense of urgency to connect globally in the US, unlike other countries where they understand the need learn collaborative skills to be successful in our global society.
  • Technology is a distracter to what we have to do – start thinking about information and communication.  Technology is only the digital “plumbing”.
  • Technology = information and global communication
  • What information do teachers need, not what technology do we need?
  • Many schools are technology rich and information poor.
  • Schools that work well value staff development.
  • Kids are social by nature – we don’t provide that kind of support in schools in the US.
  • Schools are not geared toward students to learn they are geared toward teachers to teach.
  • Who owns the learning? teachers  
  • Who should own the learning? students
  • Fear and ignorance combined are dangerous to decision making!  Most students have never collaborated globally, and many districts are blocking IM, Skype, Blogs, etc.
  • Who SHOULD own the learning should drive our decisions?  Students!

Jobs/skills to help student own the learning:

1.      Podcast on a regular basis – provides a sense of ownership when students are responsible for writing and producing a regular broadcast that reviews the learning for the week.  Students in one class have taken the initiative to have their own show for writing, math, etc.  The real issue here is not technology; it is courage.  Audacity is the FREE tool for producing podcast.

2.      Researcher of the day using the custom search feature of Google tools.  Open Google, go to more, even more, and then open Custom Search.  Build your own search engine.  In many classrooms there is only one computer for student use.  Use it – one student is the researcher of the day and teachers should ask questions that require students to research and find answers rather than being given the answer.  Give students real work to contribute to the community of learners. 

3.      Tutorial Designers using screen casting tools such as http://www.jingproject.com/ – available for FREE on the web.  Teachers should empower students to create, perhaps as a valid, meaningful homework assignment rather than answering even or odd questions in the textbook.  Another FREE resource is http://www.screencast.com/.

4.      Collaborate using Google Docs.  Sign up for a FREE Google account to create and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online.  Implementation is safe and easy; the collaborative history can be viewed to monitor who is contributing to the document.

5.      Scribe of the day can record the day events/note that are then approved and posted via a blog or wiki for all.  Kids are in a collaborative culture rather than individual culture.  If one is taking notes for all then other students can be working on problems and applying the knowledge. 

6.      iTunes U for higher education has been available for some time, and is now available for K-12 where courses and units of study are already available and accessible for FREE.  Kids teaching other kids not only in the classroom but globally.

7.      Teach children to be global communicators to work with people around the world.  Skype is one tool that allows FREE video and/or audio connections with others using a webcam and Internet connection.  For more information on using Skype and webcams visit my Distance Learning page on this blog.

Tap into the social nature of kids to contribute and collaborate globally!