Why is it that as educational technologists we feel the need to stand on our digital soapboxes and scream, You're not doing enough! You're not trying all the
World Landform Tour via Google Earth http://bit.ly/bLnDa Love the differentiation for teachers as well as students
"We live in a time where the tools and technologies we are afforded have flattened our world. Principals and school leaders now have a vast array of options for learning and connecting with others. I have experienced the very real benefits of time invested in developing my own personal learning network, utilizing the Web and social media tools."
We are intensifying the quest to empower our learners by allowing the students to become contributors to their classroom learning community. Our model is Alan November’s six roles he outlines in The Digital Learning Farm.One of these roles is The Tutorial Designer.
"This wikispace will serve as a resource for all content area teachers. A wikispace allows everyone associated with this space to add and subtract content. On the left hand side is the navigation frame. This frame has links to both wiki pages and external links. The external links have a green arrow at the end of the text and the wiki page links are simply text."
Andrea Hernandez and I have set down to create a visual using the above model to include concrete examples from our school to illustrate to our teachers what tasks are considered in the substitution/augmentation/modification/redefinition stages. We want to be transparent in showing our expectations of basic tasks being led autonomously by the classroom teachers to teach and support students without the necessity of tech support to be present. At the same time, we wanted to emphasize the progression and show what transformational teaching and learning looks like.
Used wisely, technology empowers students to take responsibility for their own learning. In Leonardo's Laptop, Ben Shneiderman provides teachers with a powerful framework, Collect-Relate-Create-Donate (CRCD), for designing student-centered learning opportunities using computers. In particular, Shneiderman's CRCD framework emphasizes the importance of the social aspects of learning in generating creative work. In CRCD projects, students research information, work collaboratively to create a meaningful product that demonstrates their learning, and contribute that project to a larger learning community. Shneiderman designed the Collect-Relate-Create-Donate framework as a vehicle for preparing young people for a 21st century world where innovation, creativity, and collaboration will be more highly prized than retention and repetition.