Networking Now!!!

"Certainly, Web 2.0 has opened the flood gate on a dam on creativity that we weren’t even fully aware existed, and the explosion of content creation is an indication of the latent energy that’s released when anyone and everyone is able to participate more actively in the different spheres of their lives."

Check out this paper by Steve Hargadon Educational Networking: The Importance Web 2.0 Will Play in Education. He not only offers a great overview of what exactly Web 2.0 is (namely, Educational Networking); but also explores the possibilities and limitations of these technologies in our classrooms.

I have also done some work on Educational Networking for a PD project.  Check it out at Educational Networking: Towards the Twenty First Century Classroom.  The site chronicles my use of the web platform Edmodo with my Social Studies 10 and 11 classes during the Fall of 2009; I also explore limitations and possibilities associated with Educational Networking, and Edmodo in particular.

Network Away!!!

Layered & Delicious!!

Everything is better in layers...  A strong foundation, fabulous transitions, endless choices and a delicious topping.

This mini-unit plan was developed and used in Social Studies 10-1, all of the general and specific outcomes are included in the presentation.  It has students work through a unit on sustainability that takes them from foundational knowledge and then on to higher level learning functions (a la Bloom).

This unit uses the textbook "Exploring Globalization" with editors Gardner & Lavold, from McGraw Hill Ryerson; Chapter 11.

There is also a final slide with teacher and students reflections.

For more information on Layered Curriculum approaches, please visit Dr. Kathie Nunley's Layered Curriculum Website.

Enjoy!!

Sustainable Prosperity Unit
Social 10-1
Related Issue #3  

(Also available as a googledoc!)

Calling All Radical Teachers...

Goodbye to teaching that is smug and self-satisfied, teaching as authoritative and proud, hiding its conflicts and uncertainties behind a lectern, a textbook, or a "social science" conceit.  Goodbye to teaching as clerking - something quickly learned, easily assessed, instantly remediated.  Goodbye to teaching as a trivial pursuit of the obvious.

Welcome to an approach that is overflowing with life, crackling with the surprising and contradictory harmonies of intimacy and love, stunning in its hope for a better world.  Welcome to teaching as value laden, aspirational, and imperfect - a never-ending voyage of discovery and surprise, a continuous work in progress.  Welcome to a life of no easy answers.

Goodbye to being in control all the time.  Goodbye to overthinking and underexperiencing.  Goodbye to deference, didacticism, ego and the need to always be right.  Goodbye to prisons and border guards and walls - whether in Palestine or in Texas or inside our own hearts and minds.  Goodbye to all that.

Welcome to the unknown, to jumping off the edge, to the new and the now, to endlessly learning how to live again and how to love anew.  Welcome to relentless curiosity, simple acts of kindness, the complexity of humanity, the wonder of it all.  Embrace teaching with one foot in the here and now, and another striding toward a world that could be but is not yet.

From: "Controversies in the Classroom: A Radical Teacher Reader" Series Foreword
By Joseph Entin, Robert C. Rosen, & Leonard Vogt, Editors
Foreword by Deborah Meier

Gaming in the Twenty-First Century Classroom

While teaching high school social studies, working at the local Blockbuster, and sitting in my own living room, I have become aware of the incredible educational potential of some popular video games.  My grade eleven students asked me about the depictions of World War II in the popular game "Call of Duty: World at War", and my grade ten class enjoyed a class of playing Risk and thinking about world domination.  In both cases the students were genuinely engaged and thinking deeper about the media that they are exposed to.

However, some would argue that video games have no place in the classroom, and that we should be discouraging students from engaging in this type of entertainment.  Due to these protests, any teacher interested in bringing commercial games into their classrooms must be aware of WHY.  That is, what does the research say about this?  How can we justify using video games in the classroom?

I was assigned a literature review in one of my classes at the University of Lethbridge, and was immediately eager to see what research there is to support (or discourage) the use of video games in the classroom.  My main concerns were that the articles be empirical (that is, based on real data collected systematically in the classroom), and that they consider commercial, as well as educational, video games. The results of my labor are summed up in the following review...

Gaming in the Twenty-First Century Classroom

I also found this incredible study by Richard Sandford, Mary Ulicsak, Keri Facer and Tim Rudd; in collaboration with EA Games and futurelab.  Teaching With Games: Using Commercial Off the Shelf Games in Formal Education 

Prezi soon to come!!

My Latest Brain Child: The Digital Citizens Project

With all of the cool things available online, it can be hard for a teacher to use technology effectively... It seems that students lives are so saturated with digital media that it is not 'special' in the classroom anymore. I designed the Digital Citizens Project to challenge students to use technologies in new and creative ways... It is still in development, only the first quarter is complete, but there will be more soon so stay posted!

Tell Me Your Story, I'll Tell You Mine

I have been working on a paper for my Psychological Anthropology class, and decided to write on narrative after being introduced to it by a mentor teachers master's project.  People's lives are influenced by the stories that they tell (and those that are told) about them and their surroundings.  This understanding has powerful applications in anthropology, psychology, and (most importantly for our Creative Craniums) in education.  Educators who are willing to listen to the stories that students have to tell about their lives, and who can collaborate with them to focus on the positive aspects of such stories, will forge stronger relationships with their students. 

It is important to remember that the goal of the narrative approach is to understand the metaphors contained in people's stories, and to work with the individual to discover alternate plot lines in their tale.  This approach can be powerful with our teenage students who may have a harder time seeing the larger picture, and their place within it. 

I created this Prezi for a presentation on the paper that I am writing (and will post soon if you are interested), check it out for more information on narrative and education, anthropology and psychology.