How can we keep students engaged in learning after they walk out of the building? Let me show you three ways teachers are doing this today.
In his secondary IT classes, Kleber Quevedo uses Moodle, an e-learning platform. Moodle gives Kleber and his students ubiquitous access to their resources, ideas, and discussions that develop in and out of class. In this digital environment students learn to collaborate and solve problems in class, at home, and wherever they access to a computer with an Internet connection. Creative problem solving and many of the other skills we value doesn’t need to wait for the schedules class to begin when the class is digital and on demand.
In his secondary art classes, Steve Hickey uses Mr. Hickey’s art classes, a blog, to publish student work and gather different perspectives on the students’ art work. The blog exposes students’ art to a larger audience and draws perspectives from people outside of class and the school community. Classmates and school community members are often the best audiences, but students who can communicate and work collaboratively with a variety of people will be prepared to succeed in today’s information and social landscapes.
Wiki Writing, originally uploaded by todbaker.
For his grade 9 math class, Cameron Hall created a space where his students can get down to their business of changing the world. If you check out Cam’s wiki about writing a proposal, as of today you will find 285 replies by Cameron and his students collaborating on their projects sometimes well into the night. Actually, if Cameron keeps this space online this kind of activity and the learning it produces could build and build with each successive class. Like a knowledgebase, the collective intelligence that resides in this space can be grown by students and be accessible by students well beyond the time this course ends.
Digital, ubiquitous, and on demand learning doesn’t end, obviously, when the bell rings. But what does that mean for the responsible teacher? Well, let’s look at that another day.
