New Pedagogies

I have been overwhelmed with the information I still need to process and the great amount of contacts/networking that is avaialbe to me and my little brain as a result of the BLC conference. While I have opened a blog there, I don't know if it pays to have more than one so, for the time being, this will have to be it.
I was blown away by the enthusiasm and creativity of Darren Kuropatwa While I have bookmarked a number of articles about cell phones and education, this was the first time I saw it in action. I might add, I was impressed. Participants were asked to take photos with their cell, send it to an address at Flickrand then shared them right away.
Kuropatwa says he adapted the idea of how things are taught at medical school to his H.s. math class. In med school, you watch it - do it- then teach it. Using these principles, he enables his students to be the teachers and amke their thinking ransparent. This is similar to a presentation that I will talk about in another post using screencasting in a 6th grade math class in Calfiornia.In both instances, not only do kids feel there is value to what they know, but they work on writing in a content area with great care as their work will be published and seen. He refered to the work of Liz Kolb as a good place to begin.
I have a lot of notes from this session that I had hoped to blog, but maybe it is TMI. In a nutshell, students took pictures of mathematic concepts with phone. Saved These on Flickr and need to tag with class name and mark the photos with hotspots that explain why something is a good visualization of the concepts. The students then used Google docs to collaboratively create a rubric for their assessments. In addition to being evaluatied by their peers, his class has connected with mentors who communicate with his class online. The students were not only finding math in the world around them, but were also creating visual study tools that they felt helped them apply the concepts and remember.
I loved his concern not with the tools, but with the pedagogy that allows us to reach the students at theire level . He teaches them to do what experts do and allows the opportunity to create lieflong learners.
Interstingly, the last part of his assignment is always a reflection which gives the students an opprtunity to evaluate what they have learned, but again in a variety of formats that speak to them. He shared some podcasts and also refered to videos also created by the students.
i was fortunate to be able to see this presentation. I had made as a goal to try to take advantage of hearing what people are doing in other countries and this was such a great follow up, for me at least, after Ewan McIntosh.