VanishingPoint

Ok, I am really think that I should be asking what did you learn this week… but my brain is having time issues right now.  Let me give you a bit of background.  About 3 months ago, a colleague of my and I decided to offer a summer in-district course on Web 2.0… after the course was offered we had four people sign up without even knowing the dates we were planning on holding the sessions… now that was pretty cool.

We had a few goals for the sessions:

• Concept Exposure: We wanted to introduce a number of concepts (and tools) to them, and we really wanted to stress that when leveraging technology in curriculum DO NOT focus on the tool… focus completely on the concept and skill you are introducing and let that drive your “tool choice.”
• Investigation: We needed to provide both time and the incentive for participants to learn the concepts and then encourage (sometimes force) them to explore and experiment with various tools that might fulfill the concepts…
• Direction and Commitment: We did NOT want this to be a typical  “sit and get” with little or no follow through to actually put what you learn into practice. i.e. really make at least one of these concepts truly integral to their personal professional learning or to their classroom.
• Repository: We wanted to have a repository for the participants not only to reference, but to provide practice and to help build out as a future resource… enter: Web20School

I can’t speak for the participants, but I can speak for Mike Bachrodt and myself and I am happy to say that the last four days have been a joy and we have one more left!  I can also say that all of the wonderful teachers we have attending the sessions have gone from amazingly overwhelmed to focused, passionate learners each with a different concept and tool set that they are excited to find all of the nuances of bring into their lives and classrooms.

Here is some of what they have discovered and created:

ToonDoo was a hit!  Here is the first comic of Karl Craddock (scroll left and right)

Samantha Serrano and Jim Nowak blogging

This really has been an amazing week!  I am looking forward to tomorrow and a bit sad at the prospect of the week ending.