I feel a little guilty. I gave in and paid Marriott’s $10 extortion fee for internet access. It’s been next to impossible to find a reliable wireless signal at the conference so I guess I can justify the extra line on the hotel bill.
But I shouldn’t have to.
It’s always great to pick up some new ideas at conferences like this. However, occasionally it’s also nice to sit in on a presentation where the speaker reinforces what you already know and believe. Preaching to the choir as it were.
That’s Will at his session this morning spreading the word about blogs and other forms of New Internet Literacies. With me playing choir boy.
At the closing reflections session, Alan November asked us to use a wireless response system to respond to some questions about the day’s events.
Since there were only enough of the little egg-shaped keypads for every fourth person, the process was informal (and a little chaotic :-). But he asked two questions that I’d love to try out on a room full of teachers and administrators in our system.
Who owns the learning? And who should own the learning?
To the first question, a plurality chose teachers followed not too far behind by the government.
To the second question, more than 90% of the group said the students.
Would that it were so.
I’ve never been to a workshop on technology in the classroom, but your recent posts definitely make me want to go. That’s an incredible question to think about, “Who owns the learning?” Perhaps another question to think about would be, “How can the use of technology enable students to own the learning?”
Andrew Pass
http://www.Pass-Ed.com/blogger.html
The students and the teachers should own the learning. We’ve got to get over the notion that teachers have reached the mountaintop and are trying to pull the students up it. Until teachers view themselves as learners, the “top-down” model of education that is basically information dumping doesn’t go away.
I love the mountain top/pulling the students up analogy! In my warped (and sleep deprived) little mind it brings up an image of Sylvester Stallone in that cheezy mountain climbing movie (Cliffhanger?) trying to pull someone up the cliff to safety. :-)