Building
Learners
Project

As I register two new members for this project, I am also preparing to leave later this week for NECC, the National Educational Computing Conference. I will be presenting there about “Spanning the Gap Between Web 2.0 Developers and the Classroom.” This project is an outgrowth of the efforts TeachersFirst has made in spanning that gap, so I will certainly be telling teachers and educational technology professionals from all over the world about this project. I hope we will see some new members as a result. As the summer progresses (northern hemisphere) and winter deepens (southern hemisphere), this is a great time to play with the tools on the workBench and become more comfortable. I spent some time with it last week, creating a project of my own, and I wish I were in a classroom again with some kids to see what they would do with it.

I think about things like creating a visual story prompt or cooperative story: The class and I make the first screen on our interactive whiteboard (thus demonstrating the tools) and “pass it on” by sharing it with the entire class. I’d have to be sure to show them how to COPY an existing screen!  Those in each group could add the next step (illustrated, of course) or branch off a la Choose Your Own Adventure from any previous turning point within the story . The result? A story web that could lead many places. Simply by sharing the project with multiple authors, everyone gets a chance to spin in their own direction yet try to develop narrative lines that might converge at some point. Now add a layer: make the story historical fiction set in a time period you are studying or ABOUT to study (or a parallel story about a minor character from a novel you are reading, or set in the laboratory of a scientist you who is part of your curriculum: Gregor Mendel and His Plants??). What a way to determine prior knowledge and weave new understanding in as your study goes along. The teacher could pepper the Shared Resources with links and images and ask students to determine how they “fit into” the “story” of colonial Boston, for example. As students find other good resources, they can share them among themselves, as well.

And that was just ONE idea that popped in my head. What are you thinking of doing to Build Learners?