June 27, 2008
“I see the future…”
The most apparent change for 2013, at least in my little world, will be my awareness, knowledge and use of technology in my classrooms. My students will be blogging, and making captioned videos, and working on group projects through wikis, and speaking to each other through instant messages and discussion rooms, all using animated speaking avatars that represent them. Students would be inclined to fight to get into my classes. There would be riots… were it not for my use of UDL and the fact that by having so many OPTIONS for learning that students wouldn’t even need to take my classes in the traditional sense in order to learn. They could learn independently on the Internet from the class websites and content management systems I will create. They would be motivated, as their little affective brain networks fire, to learn on their own. They would use their strategic synapses to navigate our open-source resources in their own individualized pathways toward the outcomes they determine (unless they are actually being graded by me, in which case they would gleefully choose an assessment preference from a list of aligned choices.) And I would be so incredibly versed on the minds of my students (and probably heralded as the guru on adolescence) because of vast knowledge I would learn from their varied expressive networks exploding with neurons in their tiny widdle brains.
Oh, and my support network of professional teachers, PEUT (People for the Effective Use of Technology) would have chapters all over the U.S.
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June 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I am interested to know how your the open source resources will work for your age group. I want to pilot Moodle for the older crowd this year. If all goes weel, I will propose it to our other teachers at the elementary and secondary level. So any supportive or non-enouragin feeback and insight would be great!
June 27th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I would love to see the connection from the home to school, and I wanted to know if you have ever done anything with the parents, since you are so techno savvy?
June 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Holy Moly, Batman (apage) — you have revealed my kryptonite. That is one of my professional development goals for this next year. Let’s talk in a year and share what we’ve learned.
June 29th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Hmmm…sounds like PEUT will meet in a year to Moodle about parents. So I say, “Go PEUT!”
June 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Thanks Jen, I’m now comforted that my three year old nephew has a wonderful educational future ahead. I’d like to assure that he is in your class! Why not UDL…it just makes so much sense!!
June 30th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Wow! Your classroom is going to be awesome next year! A positive vision is everything! While the technology was a bit overwhelming for me last week, I cannot wait to incorporate it into my classroom as well. I’m hoping for riots…
July 1st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I love your vision! I truly believe that adolescents yearn to be challenged. At the same time, they want to be noticed for their brilliant ways. With your technical applications (and you listed many in your blog) these juds could definitely soar. It will be very interesting to see UDL applied to teenage brains (I bet there’s a cure for cancer in there). I wish I had a teacher like you in highschool (complete with the hair). Go PEUT!
August 6th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Jenn,
I agree with you. By 2013, the greatest change will be our awareness and that we’re opened up and exposed to so much more than now. It’s interesting to think about; thanks for bringing it up.