The ripple effect
Posted: September 12, 2007 Filed under: 21st Century Skills, Blogging, Teaching 2 Comments »I have over 40 students blogging this semester. 36 secondary education preservice teachers, 4 master’s students, and 4 doc students. The undergrads are locating educators’ posts and leaving comments; the grads are focusing on ed tekkers. Thanks to all of you who are responding on your blogs to my students’ comments … it’s a great networking experience for them.
The next ripple in this blogging pool happened as I worked with another faculty member on developing a plan for her students’ blogging assignments. I’m using 21Classes and suggested that she take a look at how I had designed the interface and instructions. She got engaged right away – emailed me requesting access so she could comment on one of the doc student’s post. Now that’s fun – engaging college faculty in these new tools is one of my passions and the main objective of the program I direct – Ed Tech Immersion Plus (ETIP).
It’s a slow process, but it’s very important to remember that we never really know where that ripple ends up when we toss the pebble in the Web2.0 pool. So I say, toss as many pebble, rocks, and boulders as possible and maybe we’ll create a surf instead of a ripple.
“It’s a slow process, but it’s very important to remember that we never really know where that ripple ends up when we toss the pebble in the Web2.0 pool. So I say, toss as many pebble, rocks, and boulders as possible and maybe we’ll create a surf instead of a ripple.”
This process that you are talking about has started already with me in this course! You’ve tossed a pebble for me; I acknowledge that not everyone has been as technologically sheltered as I. But what has happened, is that I have begun talking about webquests, blogs, podcasts, virtual field trips, engaged learning, etc. AD NAUSEUM to my friends and colleagues. They’ve asked me for links to certain activities. We’ve discussed increasing our access to certain internet sites with our tech department. There have been ripples in Glasford!
You can’t underestimate the weight of one small action. In my classroom, I have a framed John Donne quote that begins, “No man is an island…..” Indeed! THIS is the ripple effect!
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