Wiki's In Plain English

I really enjoyed the visual and abbreviated version of explain how wiki’s are developed and how effective they are in communication within groups of people. It can really save time! I think it also creates a feeling of “belonging” to a group of people who share common interests and can share commonalities and opposition to a subject. As a high school teacher, I can see how my students would excel in this type of environment. They are so used to communicating through text messaging that this would be an extension of their thoughts to friends or classmates.
On Will Richardson's Wiki I found the quote, "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change" – Charles Darwin I started to think about my early years as a student at the Parker School, the the Marshall and off to high school and to college. I realized that education was basically delivered in the same manner. The teacher in the front of the classroom spurting out information that you needed to take away from that class being tested in some manner be it memorization or English expression and on to the next educational challenge. It seems so one dimensional to me now but back then you never questioned the procedure because there was nothing else to demand our attention. With the use of computers and the Internet a whole new level of learning has knocked on our door. Not only is the information highway fast it's immediate with new and visually exciting methods to learning. Then Wiki's have come along as through an extending arm of the Internet. Communication! Communication all over the world at lightening speed. Cultures, religions, demographics etc. now really have no boundaries. It's just people just being people reaching out to learn from each other. We have changed. The world has become smaller. If you have access to a computer you have access to people. People to share with. People to open our minds. People to help us cross boundaries.
After reading Kirstin's view on Wiki's and their use with her first graders I began to wonder what their life is going to n=be like when they get to the high school. She seems to question how it's all going to work with introducing this new world of communication to her students. I realized that the world will be a very different place for them by the time they enter high school. Visual learning and sharing will probably be the norm. Who can guess what their lives will be like on the super highway.
I ojnly question now how my students have been teaching me. A good way to introduce this into my classroom is to have study time for exams. I read about this in one of the articles and thought "this is doable." Using a test simulation the students can set up a specific time to have a study time. Vocabulary and open ended questions could stimulate the conversation. The students could also reflect on the chapter and what they learned and how they could apply this new knowledge to their world.

From Blogger Pictures

Public High Schools vs Vocational Schools Acceptance Practices

As the years have passed vocational schools have now found their recipe for accepting new students into their school. Not only do they need recommendations from their teachers, good academic standings and some extra-curricular activities but they have been screening the new recruits by interviewing them. This type of practice isn't really a public school practice but rather a private school practice. If a school accepts funding from the state or the federal government they should abid by the laws of the comprehensive high school. The vocational schools claim they are working within the confines of the Department of Education. That may be true and it obviouly is. Why would the Department of Education allow this to happen? If the vocational school doesn't want a student they don't accept them and off the student goes to the local high school. The student then comes to the high school unhappy thet he/she wasn't accepted and feels unwanted. I have been asked by those in the vocational high school of what would I suggest for them to do? I say, make the acceptance policy like the charter schools. Have a lottery. Put the kid’s names in a hat and draw from that. I can not see any other fair sollution.