There’s is no other time of the year that illustrates why we need to change more that the end of the year. Kids complete 10 months of learning only to bring home garbage bag full of paper which is going to likely end up in the trash. There will be a few diligent parents who harvest a fine piece of art to go into their scrapbooks but not many.
Yesterday I listened to a great interview by Jon Udell with Dr. John Willinsky. A statement was made when referring to student work “Who is ever going to see this work again?” They discuss the need for students to create and build public knowledge. Students ought to be building on the work of the past and add, modify and make it better. (see wikipedia for more evidence) If you really understand the point of Web 2.0, you get this. What message do we send our students when we cannot give them a reason to save their work? How about, “it’s not that important”?
Our school division is moving data off an old server to a new one. Much of the work there consisted of old teacher websites and other projects long abandoned. I was asked if I had anything over there I wanted to keep. I’ve probably got lots of stuff created in html but still have a few pieces I use and link to. I’m going to have these moved over and perhaps even updated. But even if I don’t update, there is work there that I’m proud to share and keep.
- E-journalism
- Full Coverage (coverage of 2003 teachers’ convention)
- Digital Video in Education
- Moose Jaw Schools Today
I look back to my experiences in developing this sites in my pre-web2.0 days and realize many good ideas have been born from these. In particular some of the work I did with Moose Jaw Schools using video demonstrates the relevant, authentic learning we continue to strive for today. Back then, more time was spent on technical issues but concepts of citizen journalism fall directly in line with blogs, wikis, et.al.
I also want to try out a new video tool. I suspect it may not buffer as as fast as youtube but thought it looked good.
[tags]archiving,studentwork, moosejaw, schools,video,journalism[/tags]
cross-commenting from something I just posted on Brian’s blog:
About the only “notes” I took during Northern Voice 2007 were during Willinsky’s talk. In large letters near the top of the page, I wrote the line that spoke to me the most:
“GO PUBLIC!” – John Willinsky
The way he talks about having students build upon each others’ works, and on the works of previous cohorts, it just makes so much sense. Mixed with Dean Shareski’s “cleaning out my locker” post, it seems pretty obvious that anything less than GO PUBLIC! is actually doing an active disservice against students.
If we encourage them to work in isolation, on disposable/hidden things that nobody else will ever see, we are telling them that what they are doing doesn’t really matter. It’s not important, and that nobody else will value it either.
Much better to instill the virtues of contributing to the greater good, and building on each other’s work, than the alternative.