“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

I think that in order for our students to realize the benefits of this phrase we need to encourage them to collaborate as much as possible. They need to see firsthand how putting their minds together can help them come up with amazing ideas that they couldn’t have came up with individually. Once they learn this the same philosophy will be naturally transferred to the use of web tools.

When encouraging the students to use the Internet we need to model how we are not using it solely as a resource from which information could be drawn but also that we ourselves can by contributing to various discussions become a source of information. I myself learned that if I can’t find the exact piece of information I am looking for posting a question on a forum or a blog can help. My question can further get someone else's mind going and taking into consideration different perspectives we can together come up with a solutions. So next time a student comes and says I tried to find the answer to my question online but couldn’t we can try to look for it together and post a questions, contribute to a discussions, connect to people of similar interest etc. I think that the best way for them to realize that finding information is a process is to engage them into one and let them see that there is a lot more to it than simply typing the word and pressing enter.

Online Organization

The minute I saw the mind maps that bubbl.us offers it's visual appearance immediately reminded me of something I use to explore at the university. It is called Transformational Grammar and it deals with the rules our brains apply when processing language. One of the focuses of TG is a tree-like representation of sentence's structure just like the one I posted here. Now maybe this is not a mind map in the same sense we discussed in this module but then again maybe it is even more of a mind map then that:)

Mind maps could be used to help students enhance their organizational skills but I feel that with Lower School students this can only be done with a lot of help from the teacher. For example when we are having group discussions about various topics students can at the same time use mind maps to graphically represent our train of thoughts. This will help them get a more clear picture of the beauty of brainstorming and help them start to use this sort of tools in their future learning. However, I think that at young age this maybe a bit too advance for them and that's why at this period we should (as with bunch of other things) model this approach for them. One great way bubbl.us can be used however is story maps. Each time I want to use story maps in class I end up googeling through millions of versions until I find the one that most suite the story in question. With this web site in mind students can now make their own story maps adding the branches as they see fit. This will definitely make them more engaged in the activity then when they are simply presented with a printed copy of a map.

Google Earth

A night before my friend's trip to a congress in Florence she was wondering how close her hotel is to the building where the congress will take place and will she have enough time to see some of the city's sights. It was amazing to all of a sudden have this information just a click away. We took a 3D tour, followed the path from the hotel to the center of the city, it calculated the time, the distance and we had a peek of what she is going to see. So she had everything planed out and what I especially liked, the information she got were accurate (unlike the ones you get at travel agencies which most of the time just try to make sure you hear what you wanna hear) I must add that there are a lot of occasions when I would choose not to use Google Earth. There is just some special charm in going through the unknown town with a map and seeing some of the sights for the first time.

Google maps I'll definitely use for the unit on Explorers and I'll have the kids make a map of an explorer’s path. Also it can come in handy when talking about land forms that they can now visit without leaving the classroom (especially because some of the places happen to be too far away from school). Heroes, inventors and writers can also be located. Children will especially benefit from this since for the majority of them it is very important to have something they can visually connect the content to.

Picasa... nice!

While some people were trying to get some rest others just didn't feel tired enough... :)

How might we prepare students for a life of mass-sharing?

This is a question that occasionally pops into my mind every now and then or should I say each time my students demonstrate that sharing is not something they are particularly good at. At young age kids are more likely to gravitate towards clear cuts between mine and yours, starting with “my pencil”, “my eraser” to “my idea - stop copying”. This is why sharing is not an easy skill for them. In order to help them realize the benefits of cooperation we started reading stories that have a clear massage of what people can achieve when they are willing to work together. However, what kids of young age are good at is doing things without realizing they are doing them or in this case sharing without knowing that they are sharing. This happens each time we brainstorm things we know about a certain concept, figuring out how to solve a given problem, sharing ideas about text read etc. Also group activities are an excellent way of proving how they can put their minds together. What I try to do is arrange the groups so that the students whose opinions differ a lot are put in the same groups. This way I know that there will come a certain point when the clash of opinions will happen. That’s when I as a teacher step up as some sort of facilitator and help them incorporate what both sides are saying into their work. Often they end up being surprised that they can gain something out of a disagreement. I think the best way to prepare them for a life of mass-sharing is just to constantly show them trough work and practical examples how sharing enriches their learning and helps them come up with ideas that they would not be able to think of without a little nudge from others.