Vinny Vrotny is a technology integrator at an independent school in Chicago, and he was asked to put together a succinct presentation for grandparents about the work his teachers and students are doing. He came up with the following five ways that teaching and learning have changed at his school due to Read/Write Web tools:
- Allowing teachers and students to communicate and exchange information with others around the world. (Examples used are an 8th Grade Cultural Exchange that we have begun and a faculty meeting on global collaboration presented by Jennifer Lindsay in Bangladesh)
- Allowing teachers and students to see the world in new ways. (Example used was the American Holocaust Museum’s GoogleEarth Darfur project, which is being used by our eighth grade Service Learning Project, our ninth grade Regional Geography and History course and our twelfth grade Holocaust elective)
- Allowing teachers and students to reconstruct history. (Showed our fifth grade’s Mayan village recreation using Google Sketchup)
- Allowing teachers and students to share new stories. (Played an excerpt of our third grade’s podcasting project to research and tell the stories behind the named spaces around campus)
- Allowing students to change the world. (Told about our eleventh grade’s service learning project as inspired by reading Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea)
I just like the way that’s all framed. It’s not “we can blog” or “we can use Sketchup.” It’s what we can do with those tools. The presentation itself is included if you need some ideas for that group of grandparents (or others) that might be headed your way.
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Framing these as “read/write web” projects is a bit of a stretch. That is, Google Earth & SketchUp aren’t the web.
We are in the midst of uploading the Mayan villages to the Sketchup Warehouse tagging them with the Google Earth data, so that anyone will be able to access and use this information.
It is not always about the Read/Write Web, but rather the Create/Collaborate/Communicate Web.
Putting things in a frame does wonders for creating meaning within a group of people, especially those that may not be as integrated as a younger set.
Another aspect of this post that strikes me is that there was a large enough contingent of concerned grandparents. Most schools would love to get parents to show a level of concern like this, let alone grandparents.
I see more and more grandparents actively involved with their grandkids. My sister and I are both former teachers and watch our grandkids while their moms work parttime. Usually, there are a lot of grandparents around during school functions. I am glad to see educators reaching out to grandparents!