evolution of a homeroom class: a multi-piloted helicopter

When Friday evening comes, I find myself looking at the clock and wondering how I can make it to a "respectable" going-to-bed time. How can I stay up as late as, say, 7:30? Can't wait to kick back and stop thinking.

During the week there's so much thinking, so much activity going on all the time. This new education is highly-individualized, very demanding in real-time advice, counsel, direction-giving, reflection. I haven’t yet found it easier than the “old teaching;” it seems to require all of my attention and “giving” as a teacher—even though I’m much less the focus, and in some senses, less in charge. Maybe it’s the sense of being a fully active participant in a learning network that uses so much energy.

Interesting events from the last week: Stan showed me how he is using Leopard's photo gallery to bring up a picture of the setting of his current story. He selected Piccadilly Square, said, "watch,” and then panned across the picture and zoomed in. We could see the storefronts, people walking on the sidewalks, traffic signals streetsigns, even the packages people carried. Stan has been referring to photographs to make his story setting accurate. His multi-chaptered story is also Star Wars-based, so he uses references from the Lucas sites as well.

ScreenShare for working collaboratively on Alice has been big. About 4 or 5 kids spend a good deal of time making their animation. The notable learning skills from this program are persistence and patience. Kids advise each other—I can just hear Christine and Elizabeth talking: "You can't just get on and be entertained. You have to learn something. You have to take time." As a teacher, I love hearing that lesson come across "organically," from the kids' experiences. I put the lesson in my pocket for further reference; that’ll be good to refer back to.

Stan’s and Jaival’s problem-solving skills are apparent and much appreciated. Both boys independently saved and shared screenshots of two different browsers using ning, side by side. We’re trying to figure out why the photographs show correctly sometimes but not others. When the boys shared their sleuth-work with me and then I showed the class, I encouraged them to write to ning to see what information they could get. They seemed a bit shy about that. Also, follow-through is sometimes there and sometimes not. More about that shortly.

Our big new venture last week was use of “controversial forums.” The two debates turned out very well, with deep thought evident as well as consideration for the “perspective of other.” The two forums were called “Use of Wikipedia in Schools” and “the Japanese Whale Hunt.” The lessons from controversy are profound, and just the beginning of something big. I think I’ll write about those separately at another time. Something to be noticed now: the kids are clearly learning about the difference between “opinion” and “informed opinion.” Another thing: how wonderful it is that the “tracks of our thinking” are preserved on the network. We can use our own conversation as a learning tool. You can be sure we’ll refer back to what we learned about personal expression amidst controversy.

Other observations about learning: Matt’s output in writing for classwork has about doubled since the beginning of the year. Beyond producing more writing, he is viewing writing differently, viewing it as a tool. He’s initiating (and moderating, in staccato briefs—but nevertheless, moderating) a lot of forums. An informal survey of his pre-network writing skills would place him at about grade 3. Now he would average about half-way through 5th grade. Most important is the fact that he has become motivated to reread his writing and edit it, since it has the purpose of communicating with people he cares about, and the messages and work are clearly his.

Dustin found a role for himself as “Food Critic.” Since his parents take out a lot of important people to fancy restaurants as part of their professorial work, Dustin has become our local connoisseur. He can’t wait to get to his blog to tell us his latest review of local cuisine. He’s taking giant leaps in writing skills, too, especially spelling and punctuation. He’s beginning to view himself as a “professional” now, and wants to make his posts “decorous.”

About the network overall—
The need for taking on roles in our ning keeps coming up. We're a learning community, so there are jobs to be done. Mechanical know-how and persistence is beneficial to the group. Who will take time to scan and post, scan and post? The workhorses who will just take on a project and through persistence drive it to completion are worth their weight in gold.

Follow-through is becoming a key learning-quality in furthering our network. Happily, a few students are taking on the role of “ultimate problem solvers”; they step up to bat after peers say, “Oh that doesn’t work,” or “I tried it but it wouldn’t work.” Christine, for instance, can figure anything out. If she takes on a problem, you can know she’ll walk the whole way down the road, until the problem is completely solved. Last week she solved once and for all our problem of posting podcasts (file conversion in advanced preferences) and then trained half a dozen others exactly how to do it. Ahh, thanks, Christine. You are a learning community problem-solver, facilitator, leader.

Also, with regard to furthering our network: organizers are invaluable: Can you make a folder? A slideshow? How should photos be posted, with what sense of organization? How about podcasts, videos? How are you saving that? What's the information going up "under"? Are you tagging that? What tags are we using, anyhow? Who knows how to make new tabs? Who can conceive of our overall organization? Can the perspective be fluid? How fluid? Who’s taking time to perceive the organizational needs, create and implement conducive structures for storage and sharing of information? Who sees the big picture?

And let’s not forget about beauty, about making things that are functional AND pleasing to the eye. Who’s good at graphic design? Who makes page layouts we marvel at?

Ok, that’s all I can post for now. I am deeply grateful to members of Ning in Education and Classroom 2.0 who have encouraged me to continue writing about this experiment in educational change. For me, it’s just as it is for the kids: when I have a sense of peer support, my motivation soars.

Looking ahead: this coming week I predict we’ll see a flurry of activity in problem-solving and network refinement because we’re touring others’ networks. The kids will “go visit” and “come home” with a whole new set of ideas for what we can do.

In closing, I’ll share my latest analogy. It’s like I’m flying through “learning space” with the students, in a multi-piloted helicopter.



(cross-posted as a forum on Ning in Education)