Are we teaching the Love of Learning?

Education Article Summary/Reflection
Periodical: District Administration
Date: October 2010
Title: For the Love of Learning
Author: Will Richardson

Teaching education is more than passing the test or getting students into college, this article focuses on education teaching students to be self-directed, self-organized, and passionate learners. Students have more information at their fingertips through the web than we could have ever imagined from the late 80's and early 90's.

This article allowed me to reflect on my classroom at Alburnett. Are we focussing on individual student interest? Or real-problem solving? Or just the love of learning which some may refer to as exploration? Are we using the tools we have to do our best? I feel that we have to practice being passionate learners for our academia interest, which will carry over into our students. Are we trying new things and constantly updating, some new things don't go as well as others, so the next year are we adjusting or modifying or do we just scrap that idea?

This article focuses on the 21st century skills, which Mr. Richardson defines as the ability of our students to publish information to global audiences, by collaborating and creating with others who may be half way around the world at any hour of the day. Also, the ability of our students to tell stories through the use of multimedia, up to date and practical multimedia.

Sometimes it is easier to focus on the barriers, but if we step back with the attitude we want our students to develop then we need to find ways to incorporate the tools that our students are using in their personal life into education. Being creative in finding ways to use those tools in our classroom. If our students don't want to do something they will find an excuse; if they want to do something, they will find a way. The article focuses on a New Jersey school that is bringing this philosophy to their 3,200 students by making the majority of their classes inquiry based and grounding those classes in social online tools, such as blogs.

I enjoyed this article because I agree with a lot of what the author is saying and to me it makes sense. Learning is more than learning the answers for the next test, it is a passion. We need to display that passion through our teaching.

Please post ideas or thoughts or possible tools/contacts to develop this concept further at Alburnett.

Kindergarten Video Game

Two Alburnett seniors recently created a video game for the Kindergarten classes to use during their computer time. Click on the link to see the students demonstrating the video game to the Kindergarteners. The game is a fish counting game where the students have to count how many fish are on the screen. They are given three numbers and should click on the correct one that matches the number of fish on the screen. The students worked with Mrs. Paulsen and Mr. Kuhlers using GameMaker v8.0 from yoyogames.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kkuhlers/KindergartenGames#slideshow/5531627092723068290

Business students blogging

Every other week my students are required to read a magazine article or newspaper article with something to do with business and then summarize in a blog the student created online. This is great for cross-curricular for reading and writing, also students are reading and learning about business articles. Check out the link below to see what students are blogging about.

http://sites.google.com/site/kkuhlers/introduction-to-business

Venezuelan businessman coming to Alburnett

Skype is a powerful tool. My students will be having a guest speaker through Skype next week. He is an international or global businessman from Venezuela who works for an American company. This week my students are putting some questions together that I'll e-mail to him and next week we will agree on a day. He will skype into my classroom and have a discussion with my high school students.

Also, he will be speaking some Spanish to have some cross-curricular flavor to his appearance. My students are looking forward to this opportunity to learn more about global business & see if they can recognize some Spanish!?!

Alburnett Iowa and Oslo Norway

My Introduction to Business students have been grouped with students from Ann Michaelsen's Oslo, Norway students to work on a PowerPoint together. Each group has 4-7 students some from each country and they got to pick a topic: education, family, media influence or economy to create a Powerpoint teaching the other countries students about their country. Also, the students are creating a video of the "typical day" for their subject area. So far it has been outstanding.

Collaboration tools are up to the students; can use e-mail, office web apps, google accounts, skype, or whatever they agree on.

Virtual Team Challenge

I started this activity last week with my Accounting I and II students. This is a virtual simulation online of an oil spill in a virtual City "New City". The simulation is a national competition sponsored by Deloitte Accounting. Students are in teams of 4 with each student having a specific role in the team. They have to gather information to make informed decisions about hiring and cleaning up the oil spill to stop it from being a bigger environmental disaster than it already is. My students have created their avatars and started the tutorial this week, October 18th. We plan on doing for two weeks. Check it out by clicking on the below line.

http://virtualteamchallenge.com/home.php

Computer Building with Junior High Students

https://sites.google.com/site/computer7c/Home/computer-building-pics

Check out the above link. My seventh graders tearing computers apart and putting back together. Great hands on activity where they get to feel computer memory, touch a computer fan and take out a motherboard! Awesome-special thanks to Mr Mike Givens for helping lead and coordinate. Also thanks to Randy Morrison for providing the computers to deassemble and reassemble!