Expression of Learning?

This is part one of a series of blog posts focusing on my three year vision for my school.

My principal has asked me where I’d like to see my school in three years, from a technology perspective.

I’d like to start with how learning is expressed.

In three years, our students will demonstrate mastery of learning through academically rigorous multimedia projects.
Students will create academically rigorous project-based outcomes, for example:

1. Rich websites (rich = lots of linked content, multimedia content, interactive content, linked in with social networking sites, etc…)
2. Highly developed wiki’s. I imagine students essentially writing their own textbook for their classes - including all the “rich” material I mentioned above.
3. High quality videos. Topical, high signal, low noise videos - preferably on you tube, or another site where we can easily share / embed material. Production value must be excellent as must content
4. Effectively mod a game to support classroom content. I don’t want kids creating their own games, because they always suck. Better to mod exsisting games. Again, rigorous academic standards must be present.
5. At least 15 episodes for at least 3 podcasts. High standards, high quality academic content.

You might notice a theme here.

1. I want all the material to last beyond a class; I want it shared and helpful for years to come.
2. I want high academic standards. Why are so many high school multimedia projects full of eye-candy and no content. Sigh.
3. I want all our projects to be extendable by the next year’s class. For example, Joe writes about cell structures. Next year, Mary includes an in-depth multimedia presentation about one of the cell structures. All this material is available online.
4. I want the students to create rich content with the idea of sharing it with other students. I’ll get into where I’d like to see our teachers in the next blog post.

On 22 July 2009, William Dou inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

Wikis…some people just don’t believe in helping their friends, and others are just uninterested in learning. Even at Hunter.
Videos/podcasts…great idea, but you want good quality? Don’t look at kids for that…everything on youtube is badly done to some degree; even famous people with thousands of followers have crappy videos.
VIDEO GAMES. I like them, but you guys need to set up an elective earlier on to teach this kind of stuff, so those students can go on to make even better work later on.

On 22 July 2009, Mr. MacKenty inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

Hey William!

Thanks for the feedback!