Alan November at NECC09 (continued)

Part 2:  The Student as Contributor:  The Digital Learning Farm

I didn’t know the title of this session until now and I think Alan November must have changed his content since he submitted the session because there were no references to farm/farming that I heard.  However, he did outline what he considered to be the jobs of students in the classroom:
• create tutorials using screencasting (Example:  Factorization with “Bob”)
• contribute to the curriculum by expressing curiosity and finding their own answers.  Through researching answers, students can contribute sources to a custom Google search engine for the class.  A custom search engine shows results only from sites that have been pre-selected.   (Example.  Type a math term in the search field to see how the search is limited to only pre-approved websites.  Learn about creating your own custom search engine.)
• take perfect class notes using collaborative writing such as Google Docs.  Teacher supplies headings for the day.  A student is assigned each heading.  Periodically notes are projected for review and correction by the class.  Teacher can also review to see if any material was omitted in his/her presentation.
• find the work of other kids and build on it
• contribute to the knowledge of the world

My V-8 take-away:  “We underestimate the level of responsibility students will take for their own learning.”

 

Alan November at NECC09

Part 1:  Designing Rigorous and Globally Connected Assignments

Summing up the session:  Wow!

If nothing else, watch this incredible video of things soon to come:

Unveiling the “Sixth Sense” (a TED video)

Other take-aways:
Copy and paste plagiarism is the result of teachers not redesigning the work we give kids.  Work that students cannon plagiarize (perhaps counterintuitively) requires more structure.  November gave an example of comparing what students learn about the American Revolution with the British view, giving students a requirement, say,  to find five primary sources and communicate with British students.

We need to give students assignments so compelling that students might even work on them in the summer, as in this student-created ning:  Student News Action Network

Students need to own the learning.  November’s suggestion:  give students a list of the course’s ten hardest concepts to understand and have them find the solutions for learning them.

Biggest V-8 idea  (the kind where I slap my forehead saying why didn’t I think of that?):  When encountering a page link that proclaims Page Not Found:  use the Internet Way Back Machine to find it.

 

Hello from NECC!

I am here during my second day at the NECC Conference in DC along with several other folks from the writing project — Gail Desler of Area 3 WP, Sandy Hayes from Minnesota WP, Maria Angala from the DC Area WP, and Joe Bellino from Maryland WP. I’m sure there are others too!

Gail has already been blogging from here on Blogwalker. Here are a couple highlights from her Live from NECC series just to give you a sense … stay tuned for more — the conference runs through tomorrow.

• Best Practices in Fair Use for 21st Century Educators

• Live from NECC – Scratch Community

I also attended the Scratch session and Resnick is definitely among my personal heroes in this work. And although this session was in a big ballroom and not particularly interactive, it was really interesting because we got to see so much student, and teacher, work. In addition to what Gail already shared above, he also shared examples from Karen Randall’s Room 209 at Expo Elementary in Minnesota that I thought were interesting as they show a range of projects (it would be wonderful to hear more from Karen herself about this work — and I noticed this wiki page she set up in Classroom 2.0). Resnick also showed us how the Scratch tools work quite a bit like legos (pretty cool!) and also how using sensor boards in Computer Clubhouses, students have been working to make real legos (and other real-world objects) interact with these online animations (see PicoBoard for more on this). He also announced this Creative Computing Workshop for teachers coming up in July at MIT (and emphasized that it was appropriate for all grade levels too).

In another session I was introduced to Remix America which looks like an interesting resource: “Remix America is a nonpartisan, nonprofit in-browser editing tool that allows citizens around the country to remix the great words and speeches of American History with the hot button issues of today.” And I participated in a birds of the feather session with teachers who are using Quest Atlantis in their classrooms across content areas.

More to come! Christina

 

Stay tuned for news from NECC 2009

Walkabout bloggers will be at NECC in Washington, DC June 28 – July 1. We wait to hear what they have to say. In the meantime, check out the feeds at NECC, NECC09, NECC2009. (Alas, folks are not all using the same tags.)