The introduction of the Keynote mentioned that NBC is getting into the education business too. They are launching NBCLearn.com and making their news archives available on demand – what a great resource for history and social studies teachers. They are also starting a website called ICue.com - I will have to explore that later on.
I’ve got to say, if anything could tempt me back into the classroom, today’s keynote could do it. To hear Jim and Mali talk about how they have used the power of the world wide network to find and collaborate with classes in Japan, Sierra Leone, and other international classes, and to hear of both their passion and also the effect it has had on their students was truely inspiring. I don’t know exactly how this would play out in a middle school environment – that is the piece of the puzzle that I can’t fill in. I am thinking that if a teacher could pick one class period they wanted to do their collaboration with, that might be more managable. On the one hand it would be tempting to choose the pre-AP students, because they are more able to handle the demands, but then on the other hand that strikes me as fundamentally unfair to the ‘regular’ students – perhaps they would be more needing of somthing to inspire and motivate. Mali and Jim discusses several websites for finding and collaborating with schools worldwide. Thinks like iearn.org where teachers can find and join ongoing collaborative projects, or MyHero.com where students can upload and share their writing about who they consider a hero. Another was TakingitGlobal.org for more projects. Also ZeroFootprintKids.com – getting kids involved in reducing their carbon footprints. I am looking forward to sharing these ideas with my social studies teachers – I am sure they will enjoy this.
