Karen Greenwood Henke is a professional writer and speaker on emerging technologies and their role in education. She is also the founder of Grant Wrangler, a free grants and awards listing service.
I attended a workshop at the American Architecture Foundation on Great Schools by Design to talk about how to design learning spaces for schools in Los Angeles and New York City. Listening to architects and school leaders talk about the actual shape and functionality of classrooms and school spaces, I realized that the architecture of the virtual learning space is as important as the physical space.
These students created a centralized web site for their school and recently won a Digital Open award, a tech expo for teens.
PBS TeacherLine Peer Connection is a great example of the rise of social networks as professional learning communities. Social networking is not just about sharing your latest thoughts, it’s about developing a network of peers who help you learn faster and become better at what you do.
These networks support long tail learning for teachers. It helps teachers find and share expertise on specific areas of interest that they might not find in the same school building or district. Barbara Bray’s eCoach Web site is another great example of this phenomenon. eCoach also offers professional coaching services to help teachers develop their coaching skills or improve their own instructional skills.
When I hear educators talking about Web 2.0 in the classroom, I keep hearing about 2 particular applications: Wikispaces and VoiceThread. We’ve already shared Adam Frey’s thinking about the future of education. Next up is Ben Papell, one of the founders of VoiceThread, who I met on the exhibit floor at NECC 2008. As you might imagine, he echos earlier comments about breaking down walls and fostering collaboration.
Speaking of ambitious teaching and learning, I was really impressed by Kerrie Guston, an elementary school teacher from Magnolia, Texas.
During the Classroom 2.0 Birds of a Feather session, she described her “Share Your Community” project at Gustinspace. Elementary students from Magnolia, Texas, and Perth, Australia share their community through a wiki moderated and maintained by Kerrie.
