Friday, March 09, 2007
Re-Inventing the Wheel!
Yesterday six remarkable educators visited us (in real life) at Suffern Middle School! Representing many of the BOCES regions of the Hudson Valley, they drove impressive distances to actually experience what our students do in SL each day. The feedback I received was very validating and I believe my visitors contributed as much as they gained. The best part of the day for me was watching my kids shine! They not only demonstrated the skills they have mastered in the virtual environment, but they were poised, direct, and amazingly succinct in their reponses to questions and conversations. As always, an hour with the kids is worth more than all the presentations I could ever deliver. This is their frontier, and they want us to understand and support it! Since I neglected to directly ask permission of my guests to publish their names and affiliations I will await their comments in this forum but I wish to extend my thanks to them. One remarakable resource that was shared is this blog: http://www.puritansguidetosecondlife.blogspot.com/ also in my list to the right. Don't miss it!
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4 comments:
The experience was amazing, and thank you for having us. You read my blog and know how I feel. There is a very special learning community going on there. And I am happy to know of it.
Jeremiah Frink (320 miles from Ramapo) here. I was one of those who visited. What I walked away with was that the educators at Ramapo (led by Peggy) have done phenomenal things BECAUSE they focus on the students first. The teachers looked at where kids are, how they learn and from there connected with what Peggy was doing. They said, this is a great way for students to go more in depth with what we are learning. It wasn't the technology, it wasn't preparing them, it wasn't about some cool way to motivate them, it was about the kids and who they are.
If we all start with where the kids are at...OUR kids not kids in general and work from there, we will make wonderful things happen in Second Life and in the each kids first life too.
Hi Peggy,
It was great meeting you last week at Victoria's place and I would love to follow up on our discussion ... I am blocking off most of the week of April 9th (we are on spring break) for SL activities and a visit to Suffern. Based on Victoria's description to me on the phone the other day, SL is making truly remarkable differences in teaching and learning at your school, and I asbolutely can't wait to see it for myself. I realize you are insanely busy. Thanks for your time!
Best,
-kj-
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