What A Difference A Year Makes!

A new school year started last week, and it didn't take long for me to catch on to some interesting developments in the classroom. You see, I have the unique opportunity (for part of the day) to teach many of the same students I taught last year. Naturally, I can't help but notice the growth that these 6th graders have shown since September of last year.

We placed a heavy focus on using web tools in the classroom when they were with me in grade 5. We created our own class podcast, we created digital stories using Photo Story and Windows Movie Maker, we blogged with each other and with other classrooms, and we made live video connections (using Skype and Adobe Connect) with other students and educators from around the world. It was a modest start compared to the efforts of other, more technologically experienced educators, but we were able to learn together in an environment that focused on project-based learning, character and service initiatives, and rigorous curriculum standards.

This is the interesting part. Throughout the summer holidays some students continued to create podcasts, and make edits and updates to the wikis that were created in class months earlier. I find it fascinating that students would even consider doing this while on their summer vacation! Then, during the first week of the new school year (last week), I got another surprise. I gave the students an opportunity to explore the web for a few minutes, with very little guidelines or instruction from me. I wanted to see what sites the students would gravitate to, expecting them to try to do what they did last September (get past the Youtube blocks, or go on gaming sites such as Miniclip). Not one student tried to do these things! What they really wanted to check out were the blogs we created and the clustermaps of our websites. They were surprised to see that the clustermaps continued to get "red dots" even though no new content was created throughout the summer, and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised as well.

If there's a point to my rambling, it would be that my students have shown me that they want to be engaged with opportunities to create and connect with others in meaningful learning experiences. Not only do they want to have a voice in future conversations, but they want to follow up on conversations that have taken place in the past. I realize that I'm not exactly breaking new ground here, and I'm certainly not adding anything new to the conversation on 21st century skills (apologies to those who are tiring of this term), but I'm convinced that we are making a huge mistake if we're not considering these learning opportunities for ourselves and our students. I know of several grade 6 students who would agree with me on this one.

I'm curious to know if others have seen similar transformations in the learning attitudes of their students through the implementation of these collaborative tools. What next steps are you planning to put into place to continue the learning? This is the question I find myself trying to answer now. I'll let you know how it's going!