How to become a 21st Century Literate Educator

Translation of post "Come diventare un insegnante alfabetizzato del XXI secolo" of March 14th 2008 on "Il deserto dei tartari 2.0".

In his blog, David Warlick suggests a twelve-step path to become "a 21st Century Literate Educator". I interpret that this century needs some instructions, a learning path for teachers born and raised in the previous one.
To summarize the twelve points:

1. Create a group of teachers to work with.
   
2. Have support from the school technical (ICT assistant).
   
3. Subscribe some edu-bloggers feeds.
4. Share work with your group.
   
5. Read, study, discuss books.
6. Plan regular group meetings.
7. Open a social bookmarking account.
8. Open a wiki for notes, links and directions.
9. Join a specific Ning social network.
10. Open your personal blog.
11. Start experimenting in your class.
    
12. Share your results.
    

The post ends with a recommendation I completely agree with, well beyond technological aspects. Start becoming a master learner.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The utopian classroom

Translation of post "La classe utopica" of March 14th 2008 on "Il deserto dei tartari 2.0".

I happened to visit a rather interesting blog. Jabiz Raisdana, a US teacher in this post speaks about the 21st century utopian classroom. Obviously everything is based on technology and the use of the most recent advances in the classroom. I like the basic idea: the world has changed, students live a different reality from the one their teachers grew up in, this reality is what the students need to be equipped for, and this is one of the tasks of education.

On the other hand, reading more posts on the same blog, I found out that Jabiz Raisdana was made resign from his teaching position because in one of the blogs he used with his students there appeared a link leading to his personal blog. An expensive forgetfulness, that, in my opinion, suggests some reflections on the public-private dimensions relationship for a teacher, on privacy and on limits to set to the pursuit of privacy, on professionalism and being a human person.

I add some lines for the non-Italian readers: in Italy such a thing would be considered outrageous and/or laughable. Nobody can ask a teacher to be a professional without being a person, with his private life. But I do not doubt that, unfortunately, we shall get there too: we seem to pick all the worst from other countries quite readily, whereas when there is some good practice to copy we never seem to be able to decide...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

What is Web 2.0

Translation of post "Cos'è il Web 2.0" of March 12th 2008 on "Il deserto dei tartari 2.0".

It is perhaps a good thing if I state what I intend with Web 2.0, since this is one of the two legs of this blog.

I refer to Hargadon's post already mentioned in a previous post.

If Web 1.0 is internet as we have known it here in Italy at its first mass diffusion, that is a place where it is quite easy finding content, less easy selecting them, but much more difficult and expensive creating them, Web 2.0 is the "natural" and interactive evolution, that is internet as it is getting more and more used (especially among young generations): easy creation of content, personalisation, community and interaction tools, collaborative work and sharing tools.

Youtube, Facebook, Flickr are among the "champions" of this small or large revolution. This blog itself is an example of Web 2.0. It took me five minutes to open it. Any time I want to post I only need to open a window in my browser, write and push a button to publish directly. The limitation (but probabily this is just the crucial point) is only my creativity and productivity.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Steve Hargadon

Translation of post "Steve Hargadon" of March 11th 2008 on "Il deserto dei tartari 2.0".

Steve Hargadon is one of the promoters of Ning, a web 2.0 service allowing, hearken, to create whole personalized social networks.
Inside Ning there is one social network, created by Steve Hargadon, Classroom 2.0, whose topic is the use of Web 2.0 tools for educational purposes.
Why am I mentioning him? Because one of the reasons that led me to get involved in these matters is precisely a blog post of his, "Web 2.0 is the future of education". It's a post worth reading and discussing, at least to understand the perspective difference between our Italian way of seeing education and the US one.
Let me get this straight: I am very attached to our dear wrecked Italian education system. But I am also convinced that, from time to time, looking somewhere else can only be good.
Have a nice time reading Hargadon's post!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Objective or means?

Translation of post "Fine o mezzo" of March 11th 2008 on "Il deserto dei tartari 2.0".

A colleague of mine, teaching literary subjects refuses any right of citizenship to ICT in schools. In fact ICT is there (or should be there) in many situations, even if we (she) doesn't see it.

Let's take it as a fact: for some reason ICT is in our schools. Why? How can we interpret this presence we might sometimes feel, frankly speaking, uneasy with?

As a first approximation, I'd say that a way of seeing it is as an "objective": we must teach our students some technological abilities (probably because these are needed in the enterprise and corporate world) and the ICT periods at school are directed to this aim.

In some technical or professional school studies this is certainly the case: there are ICT contents the students have to learn, like programming or systems building or admin'ing. In other cases, I think you will agree with me, we've lost before starting the race: "they know more than we do", our students are the digital natives while we are just immigrants, to use a metaphor that's quite fashionable today.

Or we can consider ICT as "means", a "medium" (or "media") to reach something else. I like this perspective more, because it opens up a question: to reach what? I am provoked by this question: which abilities/competences are reachable through technologies, by means of them? In my opinion this might help us to give an answer to the question about the dignity of technologies in schools, too.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Let's open (again!)

Translation of post "Apriamo!" of March 11th 2008 on "Il deserto dei tartari 2.0".

This blog means to be an attempt at opening a discussion.
The discussion is about the use of technology in didactics, in particular about the so-called Web 2.0, more in particular in Italian high schools, even more in particular for scientific subjects.
The title of this blog suggests my expectations about the level of interest of the average Italian teacher.
And yet perhaps waiting will not be vain.
Welcome to all who want to have a chat here, in this fortress.

Blogged with the Flock Browser