Monday, January 14, 2008

Experts in the Classroom

Many teachers have brought experts into their classrooms. I'm sure you've all had your local mayor or an elder read to your class or host an art project, many have had visiting athletes talk about their experiences overcoming life's barriers and so on. Others have been able to bring scientists, astronauts and world-class authors into their classrooms using technologies such as Elluminate Live! (all registered users have access through a provincial site license coordinated by LearnNow BC).

I just came across two teachers in Colorado, Maura Moritz and Anne Smith, who have just begun an interesting project with four sections of their ninth grade honours language arts students (Maura's class blog, Anne's class blog.)

Their students are reading Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, discussing it in class, and then writing a thesis driven persuasive essay built around one of Pink’s six senses (Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, or Meaning).As part of their discussions in class, the students will participate in a fishbowl discussion with live blogging. This is something they’ve done previously, but this time they’ll have some additional participants in their live blogging – including the author.

When the students discuss and live-blog Chapter 7 (Empathy), Daniel Pink will be live blogging it with them. In addition, after finishing the entire book, the students will participate in a live videoconference with Mr. Pink. Since Mr. Pink is presumably a very busy guy, he will only be live blogging that one chapter with the students.

They've also invited a few other folks to live blog the other “Sense” chapters with the students. This includes local folks like their superintendent, their CIO, and two of their school board members, but also includes a variety of folks from around the world.

Take a look at his blog post and his wiki.

I look forward to reading their blog and wiki entries.

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