Francis_u06a1

    Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis are putting for the idea of the flattened classroom and world-wide collaboration fixing education. I think what was interesting about the video we watched on "Flattening the Classrooms" was that they discussed, around minute 20, that we were going to have a shortage of skilled and knowledgeable workers in the future. They discussed how creating a flattened classroom and incorporating social media into the curriculum was a solution to this.

     I don't buy it. When they discussed knowledgeable workers, I think their focus is on white-collar workers who work with technology or in technology for most of the day. I don't believe that bringing social media into the classroom is going to give us better-educated students. Twitter and Facebook, while popular and widely understood, isn't going to make students automatically want to learn the particular subject you teach. Sometimes it's more interesting to use these techniques, but the end goal of getting them to learn more might not be solvable through social media. Honestly, if we want students to learn more, we need to show them why what they're learning matters. Using the cool, new product with students will only work for so long before they get bored with that too.

     One thing that I have used in the past to support collaboration among my students, and collaboration, like Lindsay and Davis said, is a key component of learning, is Google Docs. It might sound simple, but I have been able to create station centers using hyperlinked Google Docs that students travel through without ever moving. They work together in teams to complete station one, then click on a hyperlink that takes them to the next station to complete step 2. All the while, they are working on someone else's previous work. They revise, edit, give suggestions, and create something new using technology that allows them all to work on the same project without having to move seats. I've found that students are flabbergasted that they can watch other students edit a document that they are also working on at the same time. It's a great tool that I hope to continue using in my classroom.