Open Thread 2: Your Dream Elective Class for a 1:1 High School?
Saturday, 5 January 2008 Clay Burell 
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This isn’t theoretical – necessarily. It could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
Given a 1:1 MacBook school, a geeky teacher, no bandwidth or filtering or blocking restrictions, how would you design an elective class to showcase 21st century learning possibilities?
I’ve got an elective “writing seminar” beginning next week, with about ten students from age 15-17. Most have MacBooks.
I’m free to structure this class however I want. And it should be obvious I take “writing” in its communicative (and digital) sense – including multimedia, connectivity, project-based learning, the whole nine yards.
I see this as an opportunity to experiment. And to co-teach with anybody out there with an idea needing a classroom – maybe one of the many administrator, librarian, or academic readers out there who wish they still had a classroom to implement some ideas.
How can we seize this opportunity to do things differently and demonstrate the possibilities?
The conditions: class meets every two days for 75 minutes. There are no issues of filters or bandwidth to worry about: you name the site, from Skype to YouTube, from Twitter to eternity, we have access.
Assessment and grading can be as non-traditional as you please.
So there it is. Sketch your vision(s) below*. And let me know, also, if you want a hand in actually playing “teacher” for this class. You don’t have to be a “schoolyteacher.” Heck, you can be a freelance musician or gonzo entrepreneur for all I care. Socrates didn’t go to teacher certification school.
If I like the idea – and if the students do – we’ll run with it.
Deadline: Tuesday, 8 January 2008.
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*Remember: this is an Open Thread. That means there is no such thing as a comment too long. The thread is the thing. Also: notice your comment is followed by a link, via my CommentLuv plugin, to your last post, by title. [Update: Check out the 30-odd comments on the first Open Thread, "Your Fantasy Alternative School," to see how open threads collect great ideas and invite you to visit the blogs of the contributors.] And finally, if you like your comment that much, of course you can post it on your own blog as well. It’s not an either/or. Both here is better, since the thread adds to conversation, and the posting on your own blog keeps your own developmental archive intact. Thanks!
Photo: peter-noster on Flickr
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Tags: 1:1, 1to1 school, 21st c skills, co-teaching, collaboration, education, mac, macbook, web2.0 Print This Post
No. 1 — January 5th, 2008 at 8:38 am
My thought on all writing classes: Any and all writing a student is asked to do must have relevance – both to the student and to the society to which the writing belongs. In other words, writing “exercises” must all lead to or be in themselves worthy of reading and worthy of writing. Does that make sense? John Gardner said it much more succinctly when he said, “A course in creative writing should be like writing itself; everything required should be, at least potentially, usable, publishable: for keeps.” (The Art of Fiction) While Gardner speaks specifically of the creative writing classroom, I believe his thoughts apply equally well to any course that includes any written component, and especially a “writing” course. Students must write for keeps.
In addition, for the writing course, form must follow function… Because writing is an iterative, intrinsically valuable practice, I believe a writing class does best when it rewards reflection on the process, a dialectical engagement with all texts (including student discussions), draws the spotlight off of the written “product” and places it back onto the process of ideation, creation, revision/reideation. A course on writing, then, while certainly including assignments, should be *composed of acts of writing – drafts of things rather than finals of things, and reflection on the drafts – as well as an environment of continuous communication between writer/audience/written work.
A course on writing that would be a sort of dream-come-true course for me would be a course wherein students explored their own authorities or authorships. A course where students were allowed to determine what it was they wanted from the course, and where a plethora of texts were available from which to draw (but where the primary texts for the course were the students’ works). Too often, writing courses aim to teach students proper form, thereby setting the “bar” at a certain height, *and setting a decidedly homogeneous standard. Writing, though, like teaching (thank you Penelope – http://invisibleteacher.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-teaching-is-like-writing-which-is.html), is a spontaneous, crazy, dangerous thing to do; and upon inspection, only the worst writing fits into a homogeneous standard. Why teach the worst writing? Teach to anticipate genius.
Best,
Sean
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No. 2 — January 6th, 2008 at 6:28 am
(Just noticed that you linked that post, Sean)
I pretty much agree 100% with Sean’s thoughts on creative writing and writing classes. I’m reminded of an enjoyable creative writing class I took in college — taught by *gasp* a published author — in which we did a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and not a lot of turning in finished pieces. Our final project was a finished piece, complete with the rough drafts or exercises that turned into it, a bit of reflection on the process, etc.
On the other hand, we did some critiquing of each other, and that part didn’t go well. I mean, “story time” back in the dorm suite was hilarious, but a lot of my classmates needed a lot of help. I wasn’t comfortable writing real critiques of their work.
So, if you go for the collaboration and the writing singly and feedback thing, I think it’s imperative to create an environment in which students are comfortable giving and receiving real, honest critiques
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I’m sadly visionless this week for your purposes, otherwise.
Penelope’s last blog post..5 Dangerous Things
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No. 3 — January 6th, 2008 at 8:56 am
You had to be expecting @manyvoices to throw a hat in the ring. You have 10 or so students. Plenty of computers. Freedom of choice. It’s perfect fit.
My Pitch: Students spend 10 minutes checking out the site and wiki:
http://twitter.com/manyvoices
http://manyvoices.wikispaces.com/
If they would like to add their own chapter to the story I will e-mail the username & password for the @manyvoices Twittter account.
Next week we have students in Qatar, England, and perhaps China. It would be great to include Seoul on the list. PEACE
George Mayo’s last blog post..Winter solstice
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No. 4 — January 6th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Sean, Penelope, thanks. It was unfair of me to throw such an invitation out with such short notice, but whims inviting “genius” are never guaranteed things ;
I’m still mulling it. Your comments are helping this way. One of my concerns is that self-directed learning – “exploring one’s own authorship,” in Sean’s terms – requires motivation and buy-in from students to succeed. I fear that this class may not be truly “elective” as much as “random placement”….
That being said, I’m seeing possibilities for an approach in which “exploring one’s authorship” is given the patient tending and watering to allow it to take root, even if it takes a month of waiting.
I’m thinking anonymous blogs might be a way to go. I love the idea I’ve been tempted by recently to use twitter as an alternative to raised hands – picture the student writing or reading, putting a tweet out for questions or requests for feedback, getting links or terse responses in response.
Actually, a Skype chat window would probably be better for this, but it serves the same purpose.
My point in this idea is to keep the workshop just that – a place of work on writing in the class, not for homework – in which quiet and (and archived for future reference) conversations about writing choices go on in a chat, rather than in a flow-breaking interruption for those “critique” sessions you speak of, Penelope.
Sean, I’d be curious how you’d structure the opening class(es) to launch it well?
Thanks folks. Penelope, it’s nice to be making your acquaintance, by the way. I’m enjoying your thoughts on your blog, thanks to Sean.
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No. 5 — January 6th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Awww, thanks, Clay. It is a pleasure
The skype/twitter discussion idea is a nice one. Gives you a chance to encourage questions/conversations throughout the class time, with each other, with you, with everyone at their own pace. Do you have a separate “teachery” twitter set up? One thing I’ve been considering is setting one up specifically for that sort of thing, so that I can have those conversations with the students without the rest of the tweets getting in the way. (It would be easier if you could “filter” twitter, but you can’t.)
Along with the manyvoices project, it would be interesting to encourage them to find or create other outside-of-school collaborative writing ideas. Rather than have the class as a whole participate in one, encourage students to find something that speaks to them and work on it. Or create it. I’m not sure how practical this is, of course.
Penelope’s last blog post..5 Dangerous Things
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No. 6 — January 7th, 2008 at 4:48 am
What a neat opportunity for you and your students, Clay. So far it looks like you have some wonderful ideas to knock around.
I might suggest that you take a look at the genre of graphic novels/writing…I know this is something that is very appealing to readers right now as it blends a variety of media that makes the experience quite appealing.
If you are interested, I can probably help you get in touch with Gene Luen Yang, author of “American Born Chinese.” Our 8th grade students read his book and interacted with him via a conference call as part of one of the culminating experiences. He is a super accessible dude and a very engaging personality. You can listen to our talk with Gene by going to my blog and searching for Gene Yang…unfortunately I use the ODEO player and ODEO’s website seems to be broken right now.
I look forward to hearing about the progress that you make with this!
Cheers!
Matt Montagne
Milwaukee, WI USA
Matt Montagne’s last blog post..Welcome to the Human Network
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No. 7 — January 7th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Don’t teach writing; teach communication.
Basically, the idea being that during the class you teach students to be effective communicators in a digital era: combine marketing, video, audio and conversation with traditional writing.
Co-teach the class with a digital teacher. That is, have you upfront while they teach from the intertubes. Backchannel the class – instead of having students raise hands, put them in a Skype chat. The co-teacher could respond even as you continue the lesson. Bring up the most important thoughts from the backchannel. Watch as the discussion evolves and morphs – without students having to fear saying something “stupid” to the class at large.
Throughout the course, have students basically develop a voice through their works. Have them chose the mediums for that voice, and see who does it most effectively. Discuss and discuss and discuss.
No nit-picking assessment of every post. No fear of saying the wrong thing. Assess based upon the whole—the reputation the students have developed; the ideas they have presented; the effectiveness of their communication.
Pull in more eyes from your learning networks—point us to the best posts, allow students to see how their ideas are received. Teach them how to write in a two-way manner, to kindle conversation with their words.
Make comments anonymous (for the students), so they have no fear of telling a best friend he writes like a chinchilla.
Call me crazy.
Arthus Erea’s last blog post..Your Annual Report
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No. 8 — January 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Penelope,
You filter Twitter by choosing your followers/following.
Arthus,
Would you assess by number of comment received, sustainability of conversation?
I like your concept of authentic real time writing. Extend to commenting on newspaper blogs – akin to prior generation’s writing Letters to the Editor? Participating in a political campaign and providing student comment on the election process?
Students 2.0 built a buzz – could you adopt a cause, like becoming a Green school, town, state, whatever, and launch a crusade?
We expect great things of your generation – harness that passion and show us a whole new world.
diane
diane’s last blog post..Splitting the Atom
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No. 9 — January 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
P.S.
Clay,
What happened to your new cityscape photo? I thought it went well with the new non-color scheme.
diane
diane’s last blog post..Splitting the Atom
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No. 10 — January 7th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
All of you – thanks for the great input. I don’t have time to say more right now than this: much of what you suggested found its way into my project design – a very “slammy” and spontaneous “design” to riff off Sean – wait, I’ll call it an “unproject” to give it more credibility, with a hat-tip to Chris Harbeck’s brilliant “Release the Hounds” K12 Online Conference presentation a couple months ago.
I’ll be posting more about this soon
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No. 11 — January 9th, 2008 at 9:00 am
[...] almost second nature. You are always making connections and writing your own narrative.” In a recent Clay Burrell post, he hits on another component of writing and, by extension blogging, when he puts out the call for [...]
No. 12 — January 9th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
[...] my second Open Thread a few days ago, “Your Dream Elective Class for a 1:1 Laptop High School?“, I invited any comers to propose a beyond-the-box fantasy for an elective “English [...]
No. 13 — January 11th, 2008 at 7:32 am
[...] while back, Clay Burell asked readers about a dream elective class for a 1:1 laptop high school. From the mix of replies, he came up with a collaborative writing project that he will co-teach [...]
No. 14 — January 11th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Good idea, Tod. I video-taped the first session with an eye toward editing it into a documentary. Maybe Ustream can be on top of that,. Would love to hear any input on directions you can see this going.
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No. 15 — January 16th, 2008 at 4:07 am
[...] the past week, and setting the stage for much, much longer. Need a quick-start PLN primer? Read his Open Thead 2: Your Dream Elective, follow it with a co-teaching classroom invasion by Arthus, listen to Clay’s conversation with [...]
No. 16 — March 25th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
[...] so many of you in the initial Open Thread post and Twitter. Students are still grading themselves and justifying it – and showing the same [...]