Fostering Connected Learners

During my undergrad at Iowa, I felt that the classes I had the most success in were the ones where I felt I had a pretty good bond with the teacher.  With that came an effortless connection with not only my fellow peers in the class but with the content being taught as well.  When I entered into the teaching profession as a language arts teacher, I felt that even though I had to uphold my duties to cover the standards designated to me, but I also felt a strong need to educate my students on how to be a better person - to teach what it means to be a good person.  In a time when much importance is designated to formative and summative assessment strategies, the idea of simply education students "how to be" gets put on the back burner.

With the 2013-2014 school year came district-wide initiatives of forming strong, caring relationships with and between students. Think of your classroom. There are many opportunities that you allow students to make connections and build relationships with not only one another but also with the content you are teaching. If you're considering integrating technology into this, consider this goal in mind of redefining your classroom practices to connect your students.  To learn more, please view my edu-flyer on Smore or click on the Connected Learners image to the right.

How can we provide opportunities for our students to become efficient, connected learners? Think about how you can inspire learning to continue beyond walls the of your classroom. Too many times when integrating technology into educational practices, we forget that our goal is not to have the students "master" the technology tool but rather it is that we enhance their abilities on the skill(s) being taught.  

Before we unleash a plethora of tech-strategies to our students, we need to be comfortable with letting go of control and allowing for students to harness multiple paths, paces, time, and places for learning.  For more information on blended learning strategies, see Top 10 Reasons Why Blended Learning is Worth the Hype and Blended Learning Demystified.

Think about what you want your students to do. What do you want them to get out of the learning process? In this case, we want our students to become thoughtful collaborators and communicators in order to become connected learners. Technology can help get our students there when it is effectively integrated into this goal.  Take a look at the Smore flyer for a few suggested classroom strategies to build off of before you're ready to fully integrate the additional tech tools.  Once you're comfortable, consider the quote below... :)

image courtesy of Venspired

Tech tools highlighted in the Smore flyer include Collaborize Classroom, Blogger, and Diigo.

Here are two video clips on Collaborize Classroom: the first is a basic overview of the tool and the second is an example of how English teacher Catlin Tucker uses Collaborize Classroom with her students.