Digital Eyes

http://www.flickr.com/photos/muffinimal/2521714789/ This has become a series of posts. The first two posts are here and here . Thanks to Cheryl, Amy, Karen, and France for our discussion on this issue on Tuesday. In my last post, I wrote about how we must act like caterpillars to consume as much food(learning) as we can before we are ready to metamorphose into butterflies. The discussion generally leads to questions like, "When do teachers have time to read and learn at a rate that will lead to this metamorphosis?" It got me thinking about caterpillars again. Have you ever watched caterpillars eat? They take such small bites that it is difficult to see that they have actually eaten anything. But over time, they can consume many leaves that larger than they are. With the tools available to us today, we can be constantly collecting information in small bites throughout the day. We can't wait around for those staff development days when we have hours to dedicate to learning...

http://64.13.133.31/pics/up-QURKQGE36RKSO9IA A few weeks back, I took my son to a local nature center to see a presentation on Bats. The woman who spoke was a nice woman who volunteered her time to present on a topic she is very knowledgeable about. However, all I could think the entire time she was speaking was, "I could have found this information online in a fraction of the time." Then I got to thinking... How often in education are we the Bat Lady? We stand up and lecture to our students about the topic of the week. Why? Do we think they will retain much of what we say? I can say that I did not remember much of what the Bat Lady said. Do we fear giving kids the freedom and power to find the information on their own? Do we not trust that they will be able to find it? Maybe they won't. But they will never find it if we don't start teaching them how to be efficient searchers and sifters of information. I think the Bat Lady would have been better served to excite my s...

I recently watched this video by Charles Leadbetter . It really got me thinking more about what we are teaching and how we are teaching it. I have had many conversations with people about the power of blogs, wikis, social networks, and Web 2.0 tools. I think this video does a great job of expressing what I am trying to get across. As we talk about building global connections and online collaboration, we are really talking about a shared development of ideas. We need to stop promoting an ownership of ideas mentality. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we know that rarely do our successful ideas develop in isolation. They develop through professional discourse, asking questions, researching others' work, and synthesizing all this information into a new idea. We need our students to do more of this, way more of this. Instead of writing a research project in isolation, we need to provide opportunities for students to share their research, discuss and adapt their work, and develop ...