Steve Dembo - Extreme Makeover: Education Edition

I have been looking forward to attending at least one of Steve Dembo's (aka Teach42) sessions at GaETC 2008, both because he's in my PLN and I have heard great things about his past presentations. I introduced myself before he started, which was odd in itself. I mean how many times do you go up to someone and say, "Hi, I'm cobannon from Plurk"? Thankfully, he recognized the name.

His session was titled "Extreme Makeover: Education Edition" and before the session began he gave me a quick overview of what he would be doing and told me that I didn't need to be in it, that I probably knew everything because this was going to be geared for the Web 2.0 newbie. That was exactly what I needed though - an approach to introducing teachers in my district to Web 2.0 tools. He further described his presentation as non-linear and that this was would be his first time doing a session like this. That alone intrigued me.



As he began, I felt a little like an audience member of a game show. He chose a newbie out of the audience and sat her at his computer. Then he brought up a game show grid, like something you'd see on Jeopardy or "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?", and had her pick a category of interest. Each category was then linked to a particular Web 2.0 site that he had his volunteer, Fiona, sign up for and use. During the presentation the rest of the audience got involved by yelling out the names of categories they wanted to Fiona to explore.

In the end, I did learn of a few sites that I had not seen before, but more importantly, Steve gave us all ideas about how to incorporate these sites into classroom instruction, which to me was the most valuable piece. Had his session lasted two or even three hours, I think we could have kept on using a variety of volunteers. I plan to set aside some time (hopefully soon) to exploring some of the ones that were featured.

For a complete accounting of his session, I live Plurked it. Steve said that he'll upload his presentation including the links to the sites he used to his blog.

Photo Source: Gamerscore on Flickr
Technorati Tags: gaetc gaetc08

10 Things We Need to Unlearn

So it started with a Twitter post by Steve Dembo on 12/3 commenting how reading a blog post led to another, then another. So, naturally I decided to follow, but it took me down a different path to an older post by Will Richardson, which I found incredibly interesting. In my system we are about to embark on a 5-year strategic plan, and with that on the brain, many of the "10 things we need to unlearn" stood out to me.

"We need to unlearn the idea that we are the sole content experts in the classroom, because we can now connect our kids to people who know far more than we do about the material we’re teaching."

I think that is perhaps one of the most difficult things for a teacher to acknowledge. Most of us were educated in a classroom with a "sage on a stage", so it's what we're used to doing ourselves. When you've been the "diva" for so long, it's not easy to share the stage. However, our students are very savvy, connected, and we should expect more from them than the blank slates we've been used to encountering.

"We need to unlearn the idea that learning itself is an event. In this day and age, it is a continual process."

Amen! These days our classrooms are not the Utopia of learning they used to be. Acquiring and expanding our knowledge transcends those walls.

As a former French teacher, every new group of students would never fail to produce that one phrase that annoyed me beyond belief - "Why can't everyone just speak American?" American? What's that? Living where I do, the availability of authentic experiences for my students was rare as best. Now the opportunities they would have to make authentic connections boggle the mind. It almost makes me want to go back in the classroom...almost.

"We need to unlearn our fear of putting ourselves and our students “out there” for we’ve proven we can do it in safe, relevant and effective ways.

We need to unlearn the idea that we can teach our students to be literate in this world by continually blocking and filtering access to the sites and experiences they need our help to navigate."

Firewalls and blocked websites are the bane of my existence! Enough said.

These were just a few of the ten things that stood out to me. Hopefully I'll have a chance to reflect on more of them, but it took me six weeks just to get to these. Sad, I know, yet I shall keep trying!

Photo Credit: Jonas B Flickr