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but their ability to tell their own story, students with learning difficulties tend to do well with digital storytelling projects.

another benefit of digital storytelling, is that students, when given the choice, most often will choose to talk about something they are passionate about; thus creating engagement for the creator of the digital story

Scanning the room my assistants also saw students cruising Facebook, instant messaging, and texting their friends. The students were undoubtedly engaged, just not with me. “My teaching assistants consoled me by noting that students have learned that they can ‘get by’ without paying attention in their classes.”

Last spring I asked my students how many of them did not like school. Over half of them rose their hands. When I asked how many of them did not like learning, no hands were raised. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning

Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our ’subjects,’ ‘disciplines,’ and ‘courses.’ McLuhan’s statement about the bewildered child ….. still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called ‘the real world’ which is foreign and set apart from our schools

Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks, tells us we respond to the culture differently when we see it through the eyes of a participant rather than a consumer

And it is this participatory culture which has been facilitated by the new digital media in a way that stretches far beyond the imagination of previous generations.

When we are talking about the internet, we are talking about all of the activities we perform through this new information infrastructure and the mindset which emerges through our ongoing engagement and participation in the great public conversation that emerges through it.

Beyond the individual medium there is a media ecology -- all of the different kinds of communications systems which surround us and through which we live our everyday lives

and they have opened up a space where all of us can be welcomed as potential participants

All of the research shows that the communities of practice which grow up around this participatory culture are powerful sites of pedagogy, fueled by passion and curiosity and by a desire to share what we learn and think with others.

Pierre Levy tells us that in a networked society, nobody knows everything

everybody knows something

and what any given member of the community knows is available to the group as a whole as needed.

We are evolving towards this much more robust information system where groups working together can solve problems that are far more complex than can be confronted by individuals

Right now, schools are often using group work but not in ways which encourage real collaboration or shared expertise -- in part because they still assume a world where every student knows everything rather than one where different kinds of knowledge come together towards shared ends.

You wouldn't consider someone literate if they could read but not write text and we shouldn't consider someone literate if they can consume but not produce media

Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way.  People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically.   They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked.  They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies.  They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking.  They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason.  They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest.  They strive to improve the world in whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society.   At the same time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so.  They avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others.  They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement.  They embody the Socratic principle:  The unexamined life is not worth living, because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world. ~ Linda Elder, September, 2007

My experience as a student was that I was focused on my routines from the other class and interpreting feedback to what I was thinking Alex meant and it wasn’t the same.  Then, we I began to trust Alex’s words and it became clear to me that she wanted to use to think deeper about the questions.

My question is how do we get our students motivated to think critically when, students just want to get the right answer?

In this process I learned a lot about myself as a learner and teacher.  I really need to promote more critical thinking activities and discussion.  It is very hard especially, with the children who I teach because they just want to get the right answer and have no motivation to further discuss any math concepts.

 I also need to think more critically as a person and a teacher.  In my school we put a lot of the blame on the parents because the parents don’t help students at home.  Meanwhile, many of these families can’t do it because they don’t know how the do the homework assignment, can’t read English, or are working.

 I know I have learned this because now I have a deeper appreciation in using technology as a learning tool.

What hindered my learning was time.  This course was a big adjustment in how much time I needed to set aside for this course.  I feel as though my school activities got in the way.  I really put too much on my plate this year as far as being involved in school activities.  This coming school year I am not going to do as much so I can focus more on taking the online courses.

I would expect that most students would be located in New York

What I am realizing is that there really is a significant difference between creating an online course from scratch and converting a face to face course.

I want my students to understand that these activities have a true purpose.  I want to remind them of that purpose each time they engage in these activities. 

I kept finding myself asking “How can this contribute to higher levels of cognitive presence?  Isn’t that ultimately the point of developing teaching and social presence?”