Will Richardson, the author of "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms", made a visit to my class this week. He didn't need to drive or take public transportation; he didn't even need to make travel arrangements. We simply turned on our computer, connected it to the Smart Board, and logged on Skype. Our discussion lasted only 15 minutes, but in that time, we were able to have many of our questions answered by the man who wrote our class text.
While having our own questions answered was great, the real value of our meeting was the implications and pathways that were opened before us. To talk and learn about using technology in the classroom is useful, but to see its possibilities put into play made a lasting impression. With this one simple tool, students can get in contact with experts and authors from anywhere on the globe. They can talk to students in other countries, watch and take part in experiments performed in distant labs, or look in on their own class when they're sick without the disadvantage of not being able to ask and answer questions.
The only stipulation here is that the students will need to know people before they contact them. This is where a familiar tool comes in to play: blogging. By setting up an educational blog, a class or student can begin searching out others with similar goals in mind, as well as professionals in various fields of study. By increasing their network, they will be able to reach people they had never seen or even heard of before.
With proper direction, blogging can be a powerful, safe, and effective way for our class to reach out to the vast world. It can open up a network of possibilities, and in the process, teach them valuable social lessons and networking skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. Of course, to help our students make the most of this tool, we ourselves must become proficient users, exploring these possibilities and learning to make the most of them.
My goal here is to make connections with educators, authors, experts, and everyday people around the world in an effort to glean as much as I can from those with something to offer. At the same time, I hope that my small contributions on this blog can help others make vital or even trivial connections; maybe my experiences can do their part to add to the vast expanse of knowledge that is continually growing among the human race.
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I agree with your comments about the discussion with Mr. Richardson. As a new Skype user, it was very interesting to see how easy the application worked. Skype is definitely something I would use to connect my students with other teachers and professionals in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteYou made a connection with me. You posted your link on a response to "weblogg-ed". So I checked you out. I think it would be really neat to use Skype as a means to talk to an author. I use to teach in a third grade class and we spent a long time on Patricia Pollaco, how neat would it be talk with her on SKYPE!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts.
I love how you introduced your post with the story about Will Richardson "visiting" your class. You make such a valid point. Through websites such as "skype" connections can be made from around the world. If it were not for the internet, we would have never had the opportunity to talk to Will Richardson!
ReplyDeleteI think its great that you included at the bottom of your post that your goal is to make connections. This is really what teaching is about. I had a teacher last term that said "Nothing in teaching is original", meaning that teachers get their ideas from others who get their ideas from others and so on. This blog is a great way to accomplish that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that I also want to use blogspot and other social networks to find connections to the outside world of education. I found looking for blogs to "drop my link on" to actually be really daunting and nerve-wracking! I know this comes with the territory of having a public journal/web page, so I need to train myself to get used to commenting on pages of absolute strangers!
ReplyDeleteIt's hit me that connecting is huge. I've benefited personally from my Twitter PLN, I've seen kids benefit from Skype and Video Conferencing, we're benefiting from blogs; what we lack right now is an easy way to connect and organize our connections. Well that's coming soon..
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