At the same time of the Xerox club (see below), Sister Joan Schmitt was teaching French in the Holy Family High School Language Lab. As you can clearly see, it was a compelling, technology-rich, language learning experience.

Please note, if your lab looks like this, please put down the reel to reel immediately and leave us a comment. We can help

We are snowed in here, unable to go anywhere, so I am reading my students blogs and watching their explorations in the Spanish language. My husband is wandering around the internet. He was googling his old high school and found this little gem…the 1970 Holy Family High School Xerox Club.

This is what student centered learning with technology looked like back then (and no, that is not my husband…I daresay he was already in college by the time this pic was snapped). Back then, students explored technology in schools, but only for the purpose of making sure it made it possible for the teachers to teach. Teaching was sacred (ha! pun!). Students were to be taught by teachers, and not the other way around.

Nowadays, as we consider flattening the hierarchies that have traditionally existed in the classroom, and as we aspire to letting go of the reins and letting our students make discoveries about the subjects we teach through their own use of technology (vs what we discover first, post to the CMS, and then make them re-discover…mouseclick by mouseclick…), we need to ask ourselves: are we ready to value them as equal partners in this wide open enterprise called learning…or are we secretly hoping they will just make the damn machines work like our 70s predecessors?

I don’t quite know how I feel about this article yet, but I thought I would pass it on and get the conversation started. Comments anyone??

I thought I would share a great clip I found on YouTube from Mary Ann Mengel from a Center for Learning and Teaching in the Penn State system. It gives a great overview of educational uses of Second Life including educational locations, tools, and learning archetypes that are applicable to Second Life. This is a great clip for a “n00b” to find some inspiration:

One thing the video discusses that I wanted to share is a tool named Sloodle — an Open Source project which combines the Moodle learning management system with the Second Life multiuser virtual environment. Just to give you one of several possible examples, an object in Second Life could be easily programmed to ask quiz questions of your students’ avatars who are visiting a site you had created. Their responses would be sent back to Moodle to be graded and stored. Take a look at the graphic below (from SJSU’s School of Library & Information Science MUVE Wiki) to see some of the other possible nexus between a MUVE and an LMS (ahem…Blackboard?….hello?):

I was just checking my students’ blogs before calling it a night and discovered this extraordinary exchange between my student Jonah, and a Spaniard named Morgan.

Look at the time, and the care, and the detail that Morgan took to help Jonah with his Spanish. No one is paying or insisting that Morgan do this…he simply offered his services to me through an extraordinary “time bank” for Spanish speakers called Kroonos. In Kroonos (named after the Chronos the Greek god of time) individuals give an hour or two of time to others, and build up “karma” within the system of pedidas and ofertas, with the promise that someone within that extended online community will help you when you need something.

I mentioned my students’ blogs to Morgan, and off he went. Morgan and Jonah negotiated between themselves what would be helpful, what would be too much, what worked for them… all in the target language. Look at the conversation that emerged as a result. Look at the give and the take…the conversation that grew between them. And remember…these are strangers.

And then take a step back and compare this exchange to how Jonah was writing when the semester began

We have only been at this for four weeks, and already… remarkable changes and connections have emerged.