How to Connect?
Kim Cofino will be our featured guest during this week’s Shifting Our Schools podcast. Kim has found a spot in the blogosphere as a leader for helping our students make the learning connections outside of the classroom. To learn more about networking for learning, definitely spend some time on her Always Learning blog.
My wife Margaret reminds me of our previous SOS discussions where we spoke about making connections around concepts. With many of our schools using the Understanding by Design approach to curriculum design, our focus is on concepts in the form of essential understandings. Margaret points out that real critical thinking comes into play as students learn about the hierarchical nature of concepts and their connections to other ideas. From a teaching perspective, we can look at how to facilitate the process of students taking the steps to and gaining understanding of concepts. One big tool teachers have used for a long time is concept mapping. Inspiration and Cmap digitally provide the means to create and save mind maps on our computers while newer Web 2.0 tools like Bubbl and Mindmeister (among several) offer the additional benefit of collaboration.
Another way to look at how to connect is with hardware and the Web. As a handheld user for many years, I became a reader of gadget blogs like Engadget and Brighthand hoping to one day find an article describing a tech company that was going to create a learning tool for the education market. This hybrid wifi-enabled computer, phone, camera, GPS, tablet device would come with a software package focused on the needs of students and educators. The reason for asking for such a Swiss knife handheld is that if students are to really be at the center of the learning process, they must have ubiquitous access to the Web as well as the means to gather data on spot, process and then publish it.
Are we there, yet? The business market has some very expensive connection tools that one wouldn’t probably feel comfortable giving to students to keep. We are getting closer with some of the products coming from HTC as well as Apple and even Asus with the EEE PC. The EEE is helping to drive the costs down. Battery life continues to be a problem for many handhelds while the Microsoft mobile operating system doesn’t come close to offering the smooth functionality of the Apple iPhone and iTouch platforms.
Yet, the signs look very positive. I look forward to my sons having such a device when they ask a science, historical, etc. research question wherever we might be and they want to take a photo/video of something interesting and they simply want to know where we are and where we are going.
