Planning Classroom Change

Minus 35 degrees Celsius this morning. A "normal" winter morning in what has otherwise been an unusually warm winter. A cold walk in the wind. Toque on my head, scarf wrapped around, hood fully up and heavy boots (good to minus 45) clunking in the mile I walk each way to work. Time to listen to a lecture on information overload by Robert Scoble I downloaded from IT Conversations last night.

I have been thinking about moving my class towards vlogging and podcasting. Several things have been floating around in my head as I plan this move.

1.) Does everyone need to do everything? I certainly want kids to have experience in all forms of expression, but I know I certainly wouldn't have been comfortable enough in my skin when I was in junior high to have my face and my voice splashed online across the globe (that online didn't exist when I was in junior high is another story...) I want kids to gain experience, but I also want them to find modes of communication they are comfortable with. The same that we have kids who are "fiction writers," and kids who are "essay writers," we certainly have kids who are bloggers vs. those who are podcasters and vloggers. They need to find who they are and what their comfort zone is.

2.) I was worried several weeks ago about pushing too far, too fast with a move like this, but I think I have now justified this in my mind by looking at it as if it were a multi - media, updated version of a writer's workshop. No one bats an eye when we organize a workshop around "traditional" forms of text and writing, why should we worry about the harm done to the levels of literacy kids have by working with these forms of representation?

3.) I have been searching for examples of vlogs and podcasts that I can share with my kids as examples. There are few kids doing this kind of work and they are far between. Finding examples that are appropriate to classrooms are almost non - existent. Congratulations Bob Sprankle.

4.) Privacy issues?

5.) Once again, issues of hosting and online space loom large.

6.) Organizing a workshop / studio is going to require a move in how we work in the classroom. I have been pushing my kids towards making choices in their use of classroom time / choice of assignments, but this requires a constant mentoring, facilitating movement. Network building, critique skills, information aggregation and production are going to be the struggles for the next few weeks. Careful planning (not necessarily careful control), and expecting problems is part of the struggle. Knowing problems will arise and planning for their solution now will help us through this process.

I've changed the desktop on my laptop to this graphic from gapingvoid.

technorati tags: podcast, vlog, learning

Comments

[Dean Shareski]

Clarence,

If you're looking for more examples of vlog or podcasts look at http://mabryonline.org/podcasts/

They have a combination of vlogs and podcasts.

[Clarence Fisher]

Thanks Dean for the great link. This is exactly what I was looking for!

Clarence