Thing #5

~ School 2.0 to me means that education today MUST use technology in order for our students to get ahead, stay ahead, and to shape the future of our world. The students are the future and they deserve every opportunity to use technology in our classes preparing them for tomorrow.

Many of my students learn from my class how to use Skype. We communicate with a Spanish teacher friend of mine in Chicago and we talk with my good friend from Colombia who shares with them her story of becoming a U.S. citizen and learning English. They can then go home and talk to their family member who lives out of state or even overseas. Many of my students have parents who are deployed, therefore Skype is the perfect tool for families to stay connected.

I use Google Earth, PowerPoint, and the internet for a final project in my Level 2 Spanish classes. They create a travel Powerpoint presentation where they are "foreign relations ambassadors" for our school and go on a search for next year's foreign exchange students. They must choose 3 countries from 3 different continents to show the class interesting cultural facts about that place. The students absolutely thrive while creating their presentation and it is a wonderful experience to see their completed projects.

Web 2.0: A Guide for Educators
by Susan McLester, April 20, 2007 hits on this when McLester discusses that education must "get on board" and teach relevant lessons in relevant vessels like the internet, blogging, Skype, and as many computer programs as possible to help drive the lessons home.

~ The Teachers 2.0 Blog was very interesting, I listened to the June 2, 2010

Teachers 2.0 Episode 3: teachersfortomorrow.net

podcast by two Ohio teachers who use Skype and Google Docs to co-teach Middle School history. So what, you say? Their schools are 35 miles apart and their students are the ones who actually are teaching the history lessons to each other in terms that they understand. The teachers are fortunate in that the students are 1:1 ratio with classroom computers, still a pricey concept that most schools cannot incorporate. With that being said, their kids get to have full access to the internet and unlimited resources for them to back their research so they can produce interesting lessons for their peers. The lessons they create are for the purpose of teaching each other their school's standards in a way that catches their attention and that help them truly understand history as it happened, not just as memorized facts for an exam.

What does School 2.0 mean for schools of the future?

Our students are already online for social networking as well as for educational purposes, why not encourage them to expand their knowledge and make technology an integral part of our everyday classroom?