Inspiration Imagination

Imagine Keister and Harold in a History class using Inspiration. Harold takes notes while Keister lectures. Harold makes mind maps that could make any mind crack - er... explode. He even snaps photos of kids working on computers. But I digress. The notes that Harold takes are put into a network folder that can be accessed by students. The next day Keister brings his class to the Laptop Lab and has the History students review and add to Harold's Inspiration notes; thus, students are contributing to the knowledge-base. Next, Keister views the new stuff added by the students, aggregates the information, and using the LCD projector presents the new student-generated knowledge to his History class for discussion. How dynamic! Imagine the discussions that can take palce. Imagine how the students will feel knowing that they contributed to the lecture. Imagine that one of their insights becomes an exam question. How might this Inspiration imagination evolve from here?

Also, if you could submit completed Inspiration projects to an accessible folder for all to peruse - including students - that would be cool.

Presidential Debates will be different this year!

Ten Questions for Presidential Candidates, Including One of Yours?
by Andy Carvin, 10:00AM
Move over YouTube debates, now for something meatier! A coalition of blogs and news organizations is using Web 2.0 tools to create another exciting experiment in interactive presidential debates. It might even be a chance for your students to pose the perfect question to them.

Mr. G approached me about making his student PLP's more dynamic. Ideas included having students create audio reflections; perhaps creating concept maps conveying student learning; scanning completed worksheets to put in electronic folders; putting music to presentations; etc... Cool stuff especially the idea of making the PLP dynamic.

Teachers - Would you be interested in a Student Help Desk? Students submit work to a network folder and volunteer teachers edit it and repost to the folder. Obviously this would not undermine the requirements of the assigning teacher. I will bring this up at staff meeting.

Some Internet sources:

Literacy Through Technology: http://www.umaine.edu/edhd/mwp/classrooms.htm and go to http://www.storycenter.org/index1.html and click on "Watch Stories".

Like a good debate visit:http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/10/education_technology_a_matter_1.html
Alan Kay said, “Technology is anything that wasn’t there when you were born.”

From Warlick at my favorite blog http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/10/16/another-random-blog-article-that-will-likely-be-misunderstood/ :“What does the school and classroom look like where learning is what you see happening, not teaching — where learning stops being a job, and, instead, becomes a lifestyle.”