Saturday, November 14, 2009

Moving into the Future

We are starting to make inroads with the transition process, of course some more than others. Last night, we had a Parents Presentation evening for our interim trips and introduced the parents to our trip wiki. For about half the teachers, this was their first experience with a wiki as a living document (rather than just some tech hoop to jump through). Time will tell if they realize the value of using a wiki in this manner, but I am hopeful for most.

Meanwhile....check out this video: Popout
This 12 year old kid tried to replicate the old 'bow and arrow drill to start a fire' trick that we all learned ancient peoples used, but he was ultimately unsuccessful. But what's amazing about this video is how comfortable the kid is with making the video, that he assumed that there would be an audience (he only posted on youTube with no fanfare or advertising), how he was unafraid of 'failure' and shared his methodology, that he was open for suggestions on how to improve, and how he was using problem-based inquiry instinctively, coupling it with modern technological tools. Kids are already natural born users of 21st Century learning tools, if we just design our lessons to accommodate them.

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