always learning

Now that our first few weeks of school are over and things are beginning to settle into a more manageable pace, I am finally starting to work with our individual classroom teachers to get the technological ball rolling.

One of my major goals this year is to continue with the sort of global collaborations I was doing last year in KL. Of course, just as I was really starting to develop a great middle school personal learning network and an awesome set of same-age-group collaborators, I had to go and switch myself over to elementary. Hence the somewhat sparse blogging as of late. But, I’m starting to find my groove here at the PK-5 age group and some exciting things are starting to take shape.

In the last two weeks or so, I’ve worked with a few of our willing classroom teachers on developing exciting new projects that infuse authentic use of technology at a global level. Here are our current projects:

Grade 5:

Two of our five classes are going to work with Chris Craft on his Life ‘Round Here digital storytelling project. Our students are starting the year with a unit about culture, which is the perfect introduction to this project because it will allow us to adapt the concept for each student’s individual ability and interest. For the official project, we will only need six completed videos that fit Chris’ original paramenters, but since we will have around 50 students participating, we are hoping that we can differentiate both the content and the skill level for each individual student.

We’re thinking that a multimedia presentation about life in Thailand might be a bit tough for some of our kids, because most are expats and only spend a short time in each country. Therefore, the actual “official” submissions for the project might come only from those students that are ready for more of a challenge. Another group of students may make a video about their home culture, still another group may make a video about the school culture of ISB. I love that there’s plenty of room for growth and adjustment with this global collaboration so that we can make sure it suits the needs of our learners.

As an added bonus, both of the classes participating in the Life ‘Round Here project have decided to start blogging. Over the course of the next two weeks, each student in these two classes will start setting up their own blogs through Learnerblogs. We are seeing these blogs as a place for individual learning and reflection, metacognition, a personal journal of growth over the course of the year. We are conscious of keeping away from the “blogging as homework” dilemma in order to allow them to be the leaders in their own learning. Each teacher will have a class blog where students may be asked to comment, and we’re sure to have some writing prompts or guiding questions throughout the year, but we want to make sure that these blogs are a place for personal reflection, more than just a place to post homework.

Another third fifth grade class has just started learning about Native Americans and will be collaborating on a wiki to share what they learn. We’re looking at this as an opportunity to learn about research as well as presentation and collaboration skills. It would be great to find another grade 5 class that’s interested in participating with us!

Grade 2:

One of our grade two classes will be working with Alecia Dry’s teachers on the Global Village project to connect elementary students around the world. The goal is to merge our two classrooms into one global village by conducting joint activities or projects once a month. We are going to focus on intercultural understanding and making connections between or different lifestyles. Because second graders are so young, I’m hoping we can set up a Ning with this group to let them learn and explore in a “walled garden” setting. I would love to see where they can go with all the easy to use embedded features that Ning has to offer!

I’m also hoping to set up blogs with our grade 4s and maybe start a podpals (like pen pals, only with podcasts instead of letters) in grade 3. I would also love to continue the 1001 Flat World Tales project with a grade 3 or 4 class if possible. Anyone interested in joining in? As always, I am open to all sorts of ideas, so if you’re interested in starting something new, let me know!

We hosted a school-wide contest to name our beautiful new facility and the winner is…

The Learning Hub

According to the handy Oxford English dictionary on my Mac, a hub is:

• the central part of a wheel, rotating on or with the axle, and from which the spokes radiate.
• a place or thing that forms the effective center of an activity, region, or network : the kitchen was the hub of family life.

We love this term on so many levels:

The Learning Hub will clearly be the effective center of learning at our school, hosting a wide variety of exciting activities to engage our students, with classes rotating in and out throughout the school day, connecting groups of teachers and students into new and dynamic networks of learners, where new ideas and insights radiate out to each and every area of our elementary school.

The metaphor of a wheel also has links to the cultural traditions of our host country, Thailand. The Buddhist wheel of dharma is one of the most common images in Thai symbology. It’s seen everywhere from temple flags, to logos on school supplies, to the doors of local taxis.

I can’t wait to see what exciting new learning comes from this perfectly named space!

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41017140@N00/1234558648

For the last seven years I’ve been working at the middle school level – and I’ve loved it! So when I took this job at the elementary school of ISB, I have to admit, I was a little nervous. They’re so small! And so excitable! But after a little over a week seeing them around the school and showing them around the library (renaming still in progress), I think I’m hooked.

Elementary students are just so excited about learning. They’re energetic in a way that middle school students are not, and I’m finding that energy contagious. When I leave school at the end of the day, I’m walking away smiling, often with tears in my eyes, thinking about the creative and enthusiastic things students said. Their constant smiles and excitement about every little thing I say is such an amazing feeling.

Since I accepted this job back in January, everyone has been telling me that I would love working in the elementary school. Secretly, I always thought that they were just saying that to make me less nervous, but I’m starting to think they were right. I mean, really, who can resist these little guys?

Now that I’ve spent a week enjoying our brand-new facility, I’m starting to wonder if “library” is the right name for our space. After all, we used to call Social Studies “History,”and P.E. was called “Gym”. Something about those new names, although they might have been resisted at first, just fits better than the original.

Maybe the same applies for our library, maybe there’s a better term for our new space – a term that describes a 21st-century facility that is the information hub of the school, the center of learning, the connection between classrooms, grade levels and teachers. If this area is dedicated to serving the next generation of learners, maybe it needs a next-generation name…  What do you think? Any ideas?

Image: http://www.craphound.com/images/booktechsupport.jpg

Summer vacation is officially over! For the last week I have been constantly engaged in new teacher orientation activities at ISB. We’ve been wined and dined and orientated to every possible aspect of the school imaginable from culture, to banking, to technology. Although it’s all been very interesting (and extremely thorough), I’ve been anxiously awaiting my chance to get to work in our absolutely stunning new library media center.

Back in January, when I was hired, we started talking about how we could completely and totally re-design the existing (dark, crowded, and old) ES library to bring our school into the 21st century. As I viewed (from KL) the architect’s plans and watched various slide shows emphasizing certain design elements for the space, I honestly could not imagine that the school would be able to accomplish such an amazing change in just two months (during summer vacation). I was wrong. We still need to put in the books and add some finishing touches, but the new library is finished exactly according to expectations and it is definitely the jewel of the elementary school! I am beyond excited about developing this new, fully equipped, resource – the possibilities are endless!

Right now our main goal is to make the library media center the hub for all forms of literacy in the elementary school. We have four beautiful spaces that flow together to combine a truly unique learning environment. We have a full computer lab area with relatively new iMacs, a project area with tables and chairs (both spaces have a SmartBoard and fixed data projector), a soft seating area with snazzy hanging bubble chairs, and a rainbow colored, stepped amphitheater with round window seat portals. Every aspect of the design aesthetic is exciting, inviting, and eye-catching.

Given my technology background, my goal is to help merge emerging and traditional forms of literacy within this one space. We are going to make use of the computer lab area as well as a set of laptops when we’re in the library, along with the multiple sets of laptop carts that are distributed to every elementary grade level for use in the classrooms. I’m going to continue my collaborative, project-based style of teaching and learning and start expanding that to include the wide variety of resources available in the library.

Along with the technology piece of the puzzle, we have a fantastic librarian (who has been at ISB for the last 19 years) to continue the literature connections with our students. Our plan is to start the year leading with our strengths to get the space up and running and then learn from each other as we go along. Hopefully by the end of the year we’ll have two librarians well versed in both emerging and traditional forms of literacy enjoying a simply spectacular learning hub!

Does anyone else have any experience in a library like ours? Any advice or suggestions on how to operate our program? Where should we start? What mistakes should we avoid?