Student Creation

Mike made a most understandable comment indicating his eagerness to start focusing on teaching methodology (in his case, regarding Math). That makes lots of sense to me...ultimately, that concern speaks to the heart of why you're all here. It happened that I was reading feeds off of a couple of teacher blogs that I like, and saw something, coincidentally, about math. It's something called mathcasts, and it's a collection of "whiteboard videos" that walk the viewer through math concepts or problem solving. It's very cool:
(see http://www.mathcasts.org/) and it utilizes the technology of a wiki (which has, as a key strength, the capacity to collect and modify a set of commenly-accessible resources--more on Friday). In short, kids create simple movies, viewable on screen, that illustrate how to tackle math problems, or that describe concepts. They use both simple video and audio. Have a look...

I mention all of this because I am reminded that one of the exciting *potentials* about some of these tech tools (mathcasts being a fine example) is that they place students in the roles of teachers and producers of educational content. We have talked (and will CONTINUE to talk) about some of the worries about the use of computers creating passive students who must be entertained. These are IMPORTANT concerns. At the same time, mathcasts is one reminder that there is also the potential here to turn learning into something dynamic, something that has the potential to impact others, and that can give students a real-world purpose to do things, along with opportunities to get some validation for what they're capable of.