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Today is
the final day of #cyberPD. I finished Who Owns the Learning by November
sometime this morning but this darn summer cold has had a severe effect on my
motivation. So, if you are reading between the lines here, this post will be
short.
What I took away from these two chapters – and from the book as a whole – is that a global audience to my students matters. I was very interested in November’s discussion in chapter 5 about developing global empathy in our students. I can think of many ways to work on this, but I don’t think I should only focus on empathy for those around the world – my students from the last few years have needed to develop empathy for each other as well.
Some
thoughts I have running through my mind as I wrapped up this book were:
· I need to set up a Twitter account
for my class. I didn’t see the purpose, but after Nerdcamp last week watching
Colby Sharp’s students tweet out, this can easily be a role that November
referred to.
· Revive the classroom blog. I
mentioned that in my last post, but after finishing the book I see that this is
something I have to do.
· Continue to Skype with authors.
Think about the roles my students have when we do this.
· Pursue more Skype visits with
other classrooms. I’ve started this, but not enough.
· I like the idea of pairing up with
another classroom. Two friends do this and call it their “sister class.” Need
to think more about this.
One thing
I always struggle with is the idea of equality. When I say that, I mean for my
classes. I have three classes for reading, one for writing (my homeroom.)
Sometimes I do a lot of tech and Skype visits for my homeroom, but not the
other two classes. I need to find a way to balance this. Most authors can’t
Skype three times a day, and managing three sister classes seems crazy, so I
need to think about this more.
In regard
to our class blog, I have thought of having one child from each class have the
role of class blogger each week and they can work collaboratively on a write-up
of our week in Google Doc. Still trying to work this out in my mind.
My tech director in my district is reading this book as well, I’m excited to see what she thinks. I plan on passing it along to my principal soon too. I’m grateful for the nudge I believe I needed to open up the world a bit more to my students.
