Week 3 Blog 1 - Now that our evenings are freer...

That sound?...It is some heads rolling out of Fenway Park - at least I won't have to try to type and read/watch during playoff games... I like how Michael Wesch listed all those old axioms and shot them down one-by-one. We really need to change how learning is viewed. The genie is out of the bottle and nobody should want it back in. Experts who are good at memorizing facts should be grinding their teeth. Books and experts used to be sources of information. Now any bit can be accessed instantly. Amazing. My students (4 classes) haven't picked up a pencil in our class all week. We have been on computers every day. I am learning/experimenting with them on wikispaces. Take a look - http://frenchandindianwarwiki.wikispaces.com/ Interest is up, participation is up, a few are spending hours at home working on them, the quality is very high. As they view each other's pages, a funny thing happened. Some kids asked questions of others, looking for peer feed back. Some said, "That's great - I better step up and improve mine." Some gained prestige by teaching others what they had figured out. All said very worthwhile. I must not let the glitches bring me down. Actually, the kids are more patient with the "restarts" and "My whole page is gone!" headaches than me. I know there is another level. More collaboration - more transfer - more connections. Time (and experienced peers) will help me sort this out. I see the potential - Any ideas?