edutopia Archives - Will Richardson

Edutopia writer Sara Bernard is looking for student input in terms of advising teachers on how they might use technology in the classroom.Â I’m wondering if anyone out there might want to pose the following to his/her students and send Sara some responses. It would be great to comment back here as well so we can see what kids are thinking.

What if you had to teach the classes you are taking now or something you learned years ago? How would you use technology to do it? What devices, software, games, networks, or applications would you use to help students learn more easily — and have more fun learning?

For instance, imagine that it was your job to teach algebra, Charles Dickens, volleyball, poetry, a foreign language, science, or the Civil War. Would you have your English students use Facebook to create profiles for each main character in Jane Eyre? Would you have them use Garage Band to create a World War II song or the national anthem of a fictional country?Â Would you use instant messaging or cell phones as tools for classroom discipline? Could you learn math from Mario?

The point of this is for Edutopia to gather specific ideas and advice from you for teachers to try in their classrooms. So, be sure to describe things in a way that a teacher â€“ any teacher â€“ would understand. You might want to mention any rules about technology and media that exist at your school and whether or not they would need to be modified. We’d love to hear as many suggestions as you can think of!

According to Sara, “student responses can be based on experiences that they’ve actually had in class or just ideas that they’ve come up with themselves. They should also feel free to offer basic advice for teachers about technology integration, or any other thoughts they have on the topic. Also, this isn’t an essay contest, so no pressure — students can just drop a few lines into an email if they like (though I’d appreciate it if they could include their name, grade level, school, and location).” Her e-mail is sara.bernard@edutopia.org.

(Full disclosure: I am a National Advisory Board member for the George Lucas Education Foundation which publishes the magazine.)

This month’s Edutopia magazine has a pretty comprehensive series on rethinking assessment written by Grace Rubenstein that picks up on my question here yesterday in some provocative ways. (Full disclosure: I sit on the national advisory board for Edutopia’s parent organization, the George Lucas Education Foundation.) It’s heartening to read passages like this:

“What we want to assess is how well prepared people are to learn new things in a nonsequestered environment where they have access to technology tools and social networks,” says Bransford. Compared to typical standardized tests, for which seeking new information would be considered cheating, he says this model is “way more motivating, much more interesting for students, and much more valid in terms of what people really need to do when they get out of school.”

That phrase “nonsequestered environment” really catches me. We don’t stay in classrooms all of our lives, do we? How do kids do when the curriculum isn’t delivered, the homework isn’t assigned, and the work is for real purposes? What will they do when they are faced with a question they don’t know the answer to? How will they work it? How will they tap into their networks, if they have them? How will they assess the information they get back and assess their own process?

That would be some amazingly important work to watch and evaluate, wouldn’t it?

Advice From Students to Teachers on Technology Use

Series on Rethinking Assessments at Edutopia