This week I felt very blessed to explore a few "digital learning environments." First, on Tuesday, November 9, I attended an event at Greater Atlanta Christian School hosted by Apple, Inc. While I participated in the three-hour, morning session, I gathered some artifacts of my learning. Then, I spent an hour producing this 3.5 minute video.
Next, I enjoyed the encouragement, modeling, and instruction of a colleague as three of us teachers explored graphical blogging, or glogging. In preparation for a devotional that I am presenting next week, I experimented with a glog myself...
1-Buttock School
Finally, in an English PLC (professional learning community) meeting, I was fortunate to be part of a thought-provoking discussion about the possibilities of 21st century learning and the potential dangers of fetishizing technology. From the rich and thoughtful comments of my friends and teachers, I was reminded of the advice that digital learning environments are NOT about the technology. The technology should be like air - virtually taken for granted. The technology is merely a means to the learning - learning about mitosis, Romeo and Juliet, Spanish, writing, graphing, letting the learning move us to one buttock, looking for the ways we can help others' eyes shine, thinking about how to start a movement. It's not about the technology. It's about learning.
2 comments:
Okay, so I've dipped my toes into your glog and my first thought is that if that's how kids can play piano after only a couple of years of practice, then I'm demoralized. I feel a fixed mindset seeping in.
Thanks for the view and the comment, Clark. However, I think Ben Zander detailed a summary of about 6 years of dedicated practice. More interesting to me, though, is not the literal lesson of the piano practice, but the metaphor for anything we are attempting to master. At first, and even for a long time, we feel and express the impulses of learning the parts. If we remain dedicated, though, we eventually see the system as a whole. The parts are blurred by our understanding of the completeness of the thing. When we get to that place, we can be moved by that which we are learning!
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