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Thirsty for More

Safe Soda

Life, Liberty, and the Importance of Choice in Educational Design.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

During a recent chat with a teacher friend, she identified her moment of clarity when she resolved to make a career change. "I was director of my department and had an overwhelming amount of responsibilities. One day, I had to abruptly end a call with a colleague when the lunch bell rang. It was my duty to watch the coke machine during lunch."

Wow, that must have been one sneaky Coke machine.

Soon after this incident, my friend swapped her part-time interests for her full-time job. Now she is an online teacher and private music instructor.  She reports that while behavior monitoring and other mundane tasks are still a part of her job,  more of her time is spent actually teaching. Many of her students, mostly in middle and high school, have chosen online classes so they can allocate more time to their personal interests. Our conversation got me thinking about how our nation's students and teachers are responding to new opportunities in education.  We are thirsty for choices in what we learn, how we learn it, and how much time we spend on task.

One example of how choice can be exercised in a public high school is by supporting students' initiatives. Explore the NY Times article:  Independence Day: Developing Self-Directed Learning Projects and learn about the 8 teenagers who choose to take on the challenge or running a school-within-a-school. An added bonus for teachers:  this link includes is a detailed lesson outline for presenting this concept to your class.

An inspiring student that naturally comes to mind when I think of kids taking charge of their own education is  Adora Svitak, a child prodigy writer. Not only are her personal achievements super-impressive, she has developed a website, http://writewithadora.com, to the foster the talents of more young authors.  Check out Adora Svitak's TED talk to hear her thoughts on education.

The internet has provided our students with a stronger voice. What they want is not so different than what their teachers are striving for. Go figure.

Choosing the Right Device for Online Learning

Donna Teuber, me, MaryAnn Sansonetti-Wood

This week, I attended the NCTIES Conference in Raleigh.  I entered the Raleigh Convention Center with a few goals in mind:

1. Choose a device
2. Learn how to engage our tech savvy children
3. Add new tricks to my bag of Internet skills

For me, the conference was a huge success! It seemed all the stars aligned for me when I came across "The Showcase Showdown: Choosing the Right Device for Student Learning" and the friendly Tech Integration Specialists from Richland County School District Two.   MaryAnn Sansonetti-Wood explained how her school district had test-driven iPads, Android Tablets, Chromebooks and laptops with VDI (Virtual Desktop Interface).  The winner of the Showdown...the Chromebook. MaryAnn explained the features of the Chromebook-it has a keyboard, is quick, light, and ready to be moved around from place to place. Added features: the Chromebook needs no tech support as it is run completely on the web-based ChromeOS and updates automatically.  Students and teachers are able to do everything they needs through Google Apps and all their stuff is stored in the Cloud, available anytime, anywhere with web access. The price point, about $500, is enticing, too.  Plus, the Chromebook is lightweight (about 3 pounds) and has a long battery life. Of course, it has its pitfalls, too. The Chromebook is entirely web-based which means nothing is actually saved on the device. Intrigued by all of this, I decided to join MaryAnn and her colleagues at their presentation "Chrome and Google Apps: Two Peas in a Pod" where I learned about apps that could satisfy all my picture saving, document making, and educational gaming needs.
Of course, I came home and did further research on the Chromebook. I found positive and negative reviews on TekGoblin and MIT's Technology Review.   
Feeling fully informed and ready to supplement my desktop with something I can browse while sitting comfortably on the couch, I've made my decision.  I'm getting one.