New Year, New Kids

The high point of my teaching day is once again my Advanced Tech Apps class. This year I have only six students, but they are six very unique personalities.

One of the first things I do in this course is hand out a copy of the state TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) for Technology Applications, and invite the kids to start thinking of ways they would like to master the skills. I tell them I’m open to new ideas, even radical thoughts, but that I want them to be in charge of what they learn and how they learn it.

This is a novel idea to most students. They’re a bit flummoxed that Teacher isn’t telling them to read these pages in the book, to follow these specific instructions for the rest of class. They’re not quite certain what to do with the freedom and inherent responsibility!

I’m slowly introducing them to the idea that learning continues whether we’re in a class session or not. Google Docs, Wikispaces, del.icio.us, TappedIn … tools I want them to become comfortable with and use for all their learning. Of course, that means they have to create logins and passwords, and we’ve already had a couple of lost passwords. Not to worry, we’ll recreate them and move on.

Responsibility. It is a big part of what I hope they are going to take away from this course. Yes, I want them to become more comfortable with technology, I want them to let tech permeate their educational life just as much as it does their social lives.  Each day I try to reassess my role with them. I am a learner as well, as we move forward in the new school year.

Let the Learning Begin!

They’ve Done it Again!

My Advanced Tech students never cease to amaze me. In February, Wes Fryer posted an invitation to join him in a Skype conversation on Safe Digital Social Networking (DSN) for a presentation he was doing in St. Louis. Although he posted the invitation at 0:dark o’clock, I happened to catch it in my early morning reading.

When I arrived at school, I caught one of my 8th grade students and asked her to “round up the usual suspects” for a chat about DSN. It was early, and she could only find one other classmate who was awake enough to say, “Yes,” to the invitation. We plunked down my MuVo TX-FM in the middle of the table in the classroom, and with absolutely *no* preparation (did that show, Wes?), I started asking them questions. Their answers, comportment and maturity delighted me!

I contacted the parents of both kids for permission to broadcast the interview, then Skyped Wes and sent him the unedited file just minutes before his presentation began.

My kids were able to use simple tools to speak to educators many states away, and to provide a “young teen” view of how valuable DSN is to them. Isn’t this what teaching and learning are all about? I don’t know how much impact their recording had on the presentation participants, but I do know that those two students walked with their heads a little higher that day…and now I am besieged each morning as I enter the school building with questions about, “Anything cool today, Mrs. B.?”

What a wonderful start to each day!

(You can hear our brief interview here.)