A couple more links and thoughts about yesterday’s post. I got an e-mail from Susan Hunsburger in Chicago whose second grade class is keeping track of their classroom experiences using a Weblog. I love the tagline: “We are second graders. This is our journal about the happenings in room 209.” Now this isn’t rocket science, but think of how those parents who are interested in what’s happening in their children’s classes might be getting from this? And what about those kids who can easily go back and revisit the things they learned about Native Americans or “Meat we can Eat,” or why people hunt?
One of the things that has always amazed me about teaching is how relatively little parents really show an interest in what’s being taught to their children and what their children are learning in school. I know, I know…it takes a lot of effort. It does. My daughter’s first grade teacher doesn’t want me calling every week to check out the curriculum, and so I try to glean what I can by what Tess brings home in her backpack and the “homework” that she has. But damn, wouldn’t I be a much more involved and interested parent if I had an RSS feed of what her class was doing and another one of her work? I mean just think about that. When she gets into high school and starts studying the Holocaust or algebra or, god forbid, sex, wouldn’t it be a good thing if I could follow along and reinforce or challenge what she’s studying without having to feel like I’m bugging everyone to do so? (Ok…maybe not. This could obviously be a dangerous tool that might require a permit of some type.)
Now I know this is a long way off. Schools have a way of not really wanting parents to get involved too closely because everyone has an opinion about what to teach and how to teach it. But I can’t help thinking that ultimately this type of transparency would help kids learn, get parents and family more involved, and make teaching better. It is, after all, about responsibility and accountability, and what better way to challenge our teachers then to ask them to publish their and their students work. Hmmm…
And to continue the learning log aspect, I can’t remember where I got the link, but here’s another example of how Weblogs as notebook can facilitate learning. Jacqueline is obviously blogging her class. Now add a bit of reflection and synthesis like I was writing about before and…
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