Breaking Down the Classroom Walls--From Technology to Attitude

My hiatus from American Cultures 2.0 has not meant that I have been inactive. On the contrary, I have been in the process of the most transformational shift in my teaching career that involves empowering my students to look beyond their grades, and the friendly confines of Hershey Middle School, and to consider their citizenship in the larger world. This transformational shift in how we do things in my classroom has been made possible by two changes--technology and attitude.

Technology
Due to the changes that have taken place in my classroom since mid-October the classroom walls no longer isolate my students from the world. We now have a WordPress MU class blog entitled Viva la Historia, a laptop for every student everyday, and access to the School District's Google Apps slate of tools, including Google Docs--ALL IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS.

These tools have allowed us to:

• Have contact with classes in Connecticut and New Zealand
  
• Have nearly unlimited information at our fingertips everyday
  
• Have the ability to write, collaborate and problem solve issues related to self publishing a book on Lulu.com for anyone to purchase with proceeds going to charity
  
• Have students manage their own WordPress blog to challenge their writing, thinking, and creativity (this will actually happen in 2009 after some training)

Attitude
If I kept teaching in the same way I have always taught prior to the transformation to a one-to-one classroom then I would be neglecting my duties as a teacher. Will I make mistakes on this new journey--Yep! I already can speak from experience how not to set up one Google Doc for an entire class to contribute to and expect them to do so in class--DUH!!! Without the attitude that it is o.k. to make mistakes then change is impossible.

Another attitude shift is one from being the main authority in the classroom to one as a guiding authority who is willing to become a student when the opportunity arises. This openness to learning and sharing is a necessary attitude if we want our technology to truly be transformative.

The ability to think big has been made a lot easier with technology. Or has technology created the opportunity to think big? All I know is that before the addition of blogging, laptops, and online collaborative tools I felt very traditional and in a way hemmed in by the classroom walls.

I can't wait to see what 2009 holds in store for my students!

Upcoming Blog Posts:
Digital Cultures Moodle Course to teach students Digital Citizenship
W4H--Our Writing for History self publishing book project
Ideas???--I welcome ideas to write about

The Power of One

Last week I attended the K12 Open Minds Conference in Indianapolis.  On my way home, waiting for my flight at the Indy airport, I purchased a copy of the 75th Anniversay edition of Esquire magazine.  Now understand something--I don't typically read Esquire (I'm not that sophisticated), but a fact that keynote speaker and futurist Dr. David Thornburg stated piqued my interest in the magazine.  A limited number of the 75th Anniversary edition was printed with electronic ink on the front cover enabling the printed words to change and images to flash--ON THE FRONT COVER. 

The reason I bring up electronic ink in Esquire magazine is that it poses some essential questions related to k12 education. Are we doing enough to get technology into the hands of our students and teach them ways to creativly solve problems in a world where new innovations are changing the way we live at a faster pace than at any time in world history? When ink becomes electronic and paper becomes the circuit board isn't that a sign that students working on paper and pencil tasks may be going the way of monks writing on scrolls?  Alternatively, and just as important, what are we doing to teach students how to live a good, balanced life in an ever increasingly fast paced and stressed out world?   In my opinion these are the questions we NEED to be asking and  answering. 

Part of the answer seems obvious to me.  Students need to be at least working on computers on a regular basis in school.  One-to-One computing, where every student has access to a computer throughout the school day, should be a basic goal of schools.  This can happen soon with the price of laptops decreasing and availability of open source and free software increasing.  School Districts and parents need to do what they can to provide access to computers for all students, while teachers need to be flexible enough to change how they teach to maximize student learning through the use of computers and other newer technologies.  

Now the only question is will the money for one-to-one computer initiatives dry up in the current state of our economy?