Overview
"With technology, more than perhaps any area of education, the general vector of theory-into-practice is challenged. When we place adult tools in the hands of children, some of education's most-deep seated assumptions about the nature of childhood, cognitive development and effective learning environments are challenged. We are committed not only to drawing upon educational research about technology; we are committed to building that very body of understanding by feeding in images of the work of children and teachers that would not otherwise be available. We are not very much interested in what kids can do when technology is simply added to the mix of regular schooling, or is regarded as just another tool. There is lots of that kind of work already." (1) 
In this laptop initiative we are interested in getting at: What schools and classrooms start to look like when students become knowledge-building environments in which "all children [are] inventors of their own theories, critics of other people's ideas, analyzers of evidence, and makers of their own personal marks on this most complex world"(2).
Through this Teacher Community we will share knowledge, examine the type of work students are asked to do and develop practices which develop deep understanding of important, worthy ideas.
References
1 Clifford, Pat and Sharon Friesen (2001). Bringing Learning to Learners: The Galileo Educational Network. Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2001: World Conference on Educational Multimedia/Hypermedia & Educational Telecommunication, June 25 - June 30, Tampere, Finland.
2 Meier, Deborah (1995). The power of their ideas: Lessons for America from a small school in Harlem. Boston: Beacon Press. |
Teachers
| Galileo