Ed Tech Geek

Visit the following site to listen to “Classroom 2.0 or You Live Where?” by Clarence Fisher:

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=150

This session was the keynote for the Classroom 2.0 strand of the K-12 Online Conference. Clarence shared his thoughts on the use of web 2.0 tools to create a new type of classroom. First of all I have to compliment whoever was in charge of setting up the iPod ready versions of these sessions. I had to go out of town unexpectedly this weekend, and knew I wouldn’t have internet access. I was able to download my selected sessions ahead of time and take them with me on my video iPod. I think this is the first time that my iPod has truly felt like a tool to me and not just a toy. Beyond my fascination with the fact that I could put these sessions on my iPod I really enjoyed this experience. It was great to be able to sit in an airport and simultaneously be listening and viewing the conference at my leisure, pause it, come back to it later, and then replay it to review the main ideas.

Clarence spoke of a change in pedagogy and not just using web 2.0 tools for the sake of using them. I really liked that concept because we shouldn’t be focused on just the technology, the technology should support what is going on in the classroom. He also mentioned that he has started to think of a classroom as a studio and not a classroom. It is truly amazing how different the mental picture is (at least for me) between those two words.

I think the most important concepts that Clarence focused on were the concepts of community and the irrelevance of geography in today’s world. He did a wonderful job of demonstrating the feel of how geographic barriers are blurred by including educators from around the world and filming his presentation not only at his school, but in his home and out at a lake. I agreed with his ideas of a classroom as a community, and his thoughts on allowing students to participate in the discovery and creation of information really did make me think about web 2.0 tools more carefully, but I didn’t feel like there were enough specific examples to actually make me say “this is definitely something that I need to start doing”.

This was the keynote speech, so I understand that it is a little more about the ideas and not necessarily detailed examples, but I just didn’t walk away with a good enough handle on how he is actually using these tools to support his curriculum and what his class is doing. I definitely see positives, but my current thought is that having students publish on the public web and communicate with people outside of the classroom is a huge step.  I really think that I would prefer to start with an interface only available to the school.

Please post your ideas and thoughts about how you can actually use these tools to support the curriculum.  If you are currently using any of these tools I would love to hear about it.  I am still very on the fence with all of these ideas.  I guess I like the ideas of teaching the tool but only in a “training wheel” environment that isn’t open to everyone in the world.