Comments on: NECC: Preaching to the choir

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 03:21:38 +0000

Re: What should 21st century classroom look like?

Fantastic questions, but also the questions of a philospher (and believe me when I say I don’t mean that in a negative way at all). But in a very practical way we have schools right now. Whether we should or not is almost irrelevant because we DO have them, those are the cards we’ve been dealt. So if you were able to take over a school tomorrow, a school with 400 kids ranging from Kindergarten through fourth grade, a school with X number of classrooms, and X budget, how would you change things? In a very realistic way, what could an eighth grade classroom look like besides the way it does now?

By: Casey Hales

Casey Hales — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 03:19:42 +0000

Well, how much difference is there between now and 25 years ago? Fifty years ago? Seventy-five? Well, there used to be only 11 grades instead of 12. Still in classrooms, still have about the same number of kids per class, pretty much the same old same old. Slight changes? We have added technology to the mix, but still have textbooks, paper, crayons, gone though are Big Chief tablets and pencils the size of Lincoln logs. Not sure if that’s progress, but Big Chief tablets are probably not politically correct.
Hard to say where we’ll be in the 21st century, but aren’t we there now?

By: John Pederson

John Pederson — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:12:37 +0000

Do it yourself roundtables. (Isn’t that what we are doing with our blogs already? Ok, yeah, it’s a very small number of people in the conversation.)

I had a killer view of 21st Century Learning this past week. My family dropped “off grid” for a week and spent time at YMCA Camp Du Nord in Ely, MN. It’s a YMCA sponsored “family style” camp burried nicely in the woods.

1) Camp counselors took kids a few hours each day in “age groups” and did some great activities with the kids.

2) One evening a local expert on wolves came and talked with both adults and kids. Fascinating animal.

3) Music, arts, crafts. All centered around an appreciation/respect of the environment.

4) There’s a family living/working in the camp, homeschooling their 4 children along the way.

What a learning opportunity. 24/7.

By: Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:19:38 +0000

What should the 21st century classroom look like?

Not a classroom at all. Forget about the walls, the teacher and the 24.5 kids. Why would we lock students in what amounts to a prison when we have the technology and the knowledge to deliver learning to them wherever they may be, whatever they may be doing?

Think beyond the classroom. Think beyond school. Think of young citizens taking their place in mainstream society – what roles do they play, what supports do they have, what protections are in place? How do we communicate with them, how do they communicate, how do they express themselves, how do they excel?