Warlick Chapter 1: A Day in the Life of School 2.0—2015

Who wouldn’t want to be a student at the school described at the beginning of this chapter? The teachers are so invested, the students are so interested, and the curriculum is so individualized. This is definitely what we, as educators, must do to equip students with what they need to be successful in our ever-changing world.

One part of this chapter that really stuck out to me was the portion where the author was talking about preparing our children for the future with personal face-to-face relationships. Warlick states “but the relationship must be richer than a teacher who simply delivers instruction, with students passively receiving and storing that instruction” (page 7). This point is especially poignant with me because too frequently I see students falling asleep or acting out because they are bored with their education. We, as educators, need to learn to teach in a way that our students can engage with their learning.

Of course, as Warlick points out, the only way for our schools to move in the direction of the school 2.0 at the beginning of this chapter is for our practices of teaching and learning to change. Warlick states “they depend less on the market-driven advance of technology, and more on people’s willingness to invest in fundamental changes in schools and schooling” (page 11). If schools do not change they way they teach, no amount of new technology will do any good.

However, using the technology I am learning in this class, I hope to entice teachers in my school to embrace this new multimedia as a means of changing instruction to engage all learners in their classrooms.

Elizabeth Partridge Author Study

Episode 1

Michelle V's Podcast

Terry Trueman Author Study

June 21, 2009

Experimenting with Voice Thread

Here are some pictures of my extremely exciting Father's Day. I used these pictures to play around with VoiceThread. I hope you enjoy my photo story.

http://voicethread.com/share/551565/

Chapter 7: Fun With Flickr

Flickr is a program that allows you to upload photos for others to view or comment on. Chapter 7 of Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts provides a wide array of ideas for how to use Flickr in the classroom.

As I was reading this chapter, I thought of two chapters in particular. Our geography teacher does a summative assignment she calls "A Sense of Place." In this assignment, she asks students to take pictures of where they grew up, where they spent their time, and what places mean the most to them. Students then create a report based on these places and create a PowerPoint to guide their presentation. Instead of a PowerPoint, the teacher could have the students use Flickr to upload their pictures, describe what this place means to them, and then have them map it on Google Earth. This would allow students to have access to each other's pictures and provide a way for them to tell the world what their community is about.

The second teacher I thought of was one of our English teachers. She is constantly trying to find a way to have students write outside of their comfort zone. By using a random favorites picture from Flickr, this English teacher could have a constant stream of new ideas for her students to write a creative story about. A picture is worth 100 words, right?

Although I am not a librarian yet, I am excited to experiment with Flickr myself and share my findings with our faculty. I believe every department in our school could benefit from this web tool.