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middleclassgirl.com » The concept - 0 views

middleclassgirl.com/?p=73 virtualclassroomproject VCP sleducation second life
shared by Teachers Without Borders on 17 Feb 09 - Cached
  • One of the reasons I think I became a little disengaged at the end of last year with Second Life was because I had reached a ‘now what?’ stage. Having been part of the community of learners on the Islands of Jokaydia was great, but personally I felt I had plateaued in what I could offer or do.
  • ut what I began to obsess over was this: if anyone came to my plot .. why would they? Why would they come into Second Life merely to click on a few urls that would take them to the internet? To me, that wasn;t a good use of the platform.
  • How could Second Life compliment some of the traditional practices that exist at the moment? These are characteristics of the space I would like to create: Low skill level required for a new user or visitor to the space. Basic knowledge of moving, collecting and navigation required. One of the biggest obstacles is *time* - I don’t want visitors first experiences to be one of frustration or pitched at a level that they won’t be able to enjoy the experience. I want it to be ‘interactive’ by which, of course, I don’t want it to be merely a space where someone clicks on a scripted board merely to be taken to a 2D URL. Documents may be a feature, not necessarily the primary feature of the build. I would hope the space could interactive for whomever visited it. Invite collaboration, strategizing and provide points for debate.
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  • However, considering the knowledge that I have on Australian History and the fact that this is one area of history that students find ‘boring’, I have decided to make this a space for Australian History. Particularly focusing on Frontier Life.
  • My idea is that when someone first visited the site they would be faced with a simulation of the Australian bush either as it appeared pre settlement. Uncleared. Perhaps with evidence of Indigenous inhabitants. Features of the natural Landscape.
  • Once armed with some of this foreknowledge, visitors would be invited to clear the land themselves taking into account the topography, geography and physical elements of the landscape. Provided with a ‘box’ visitors would be invited to build their own hut, or settlement. Here is where the strategizing and foreknowledge will come into play. Some of the objects provided in the box will not be historically accurate, so first the visitor will have to discern which objects are a)historically representative of the period and b) whether those objects are going to be of any use.
  • I think that there is room for, later on, for another ‘box of stuff’ which would include material and cultural objects of indigenous people. What aspects of their lives changed? What was the impact of European settlement on their land?
  • When people change or clear the land (if this is possible) they will do it differently. If anything, apart from being immersed in the new learning space, we want to show that historical inquiry is often open ended – sometimes there is not one neat story that has all of the loose ends tied up.
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middleclassgirl.com » Elaboration on my rationale: thanks to Ezra Pound - 0 views

middleclassgirl.com/?p=120 VCP self-directed teacher development virtualclassroomproject second life sleducation
shared by Teachers Without Borders on 17 Feb 09 - Cached
  • I hope that the space in the Virtual Classroom Project enables students to build upon their knowledge that they may have gained from a textbook, history book, documentary or museum visit by critically analysing, debating and deciding upon the way their understanding of the past is represented.
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What Teachers Have Learned - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views

roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/...what-teachers-have-learned nytimes.com teacher development pre-service teacher education
shared by Teachers Without Borders on 23 Aug 09 - Cached
  • What we need are teachers who are much more competent in their subject areas!
  • I’ve seen many teachers ‘bomb’ over the years because they knew their subject matter, but not how to interact with, or be a role model for, children.
  • I am a 21-year veteran teacher who took a whole boatload of education courses in furtherance of my BA and MS degrees. They were utterly useless. The only thing that actually prepared me for teaching was student teaching. All of the other courses taught theory, but nothing practical.
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  • In my opinion, the effectiveness of a teacher is almost impossible to predict until you see them in the classroom for quite a while. Also, a person’s educational background and pre-selection (masters/no masters/Ph.D./Teach for America/Teaching Fellows) cannot predict how they will succeed in the classroom.
  • Empathy is what enables a teacher (or any leader, in truth) to know, in every moment, what a child needs. They know when to call on a student and when not to, when a child has problems at home, when they need to raise the bar and when to lower it.
  • Watching a great teacher interact with students is as inspiring as watching an Olympic athlete. It’s an intuitive and emotional gift and it can’t be taught or instilled with any certification. The degrees mostly just enable educators to speak a common language — a necessary aspect of a profession.
  • As a former teacher I find it interesting that all the focus is on teacher preparation. Nothing was said about class size or collaboration with other teachers. It is assumed that one teacher, in front of a class, is the answer.
  • I believe that the best preparation for teaching is a combination of pedagogy and a strong apprenticeship — a marriage of traditional preparatory and alternative certification programs. All new teachers would benefit from a year of full-time work in the classroom beside an experienced and effective teacher.
  • I left the field because I couldn’t stand this version of corruption, where everyone tries to do the easiest thing instead of the right thing.
  • Pedagogy is fine and good when you’re in academia; however, most of the education school professors haven’t been in a classroom in 20 years and have no idea what works and what doesn’t.
  • That said, I have taken professional development coursework offered through local education schools that were absolutely laughable. Sitting through a 5 hour session that culminated in making a caterpillar from an egg carton is a waste of time. I went to learn how to produce higher rates of literacy in English Language Learners — not how to produce a cute craft of little practical value.
  • I was voted as “Teacher of the Year” at the High School I teach at, and I have never taken an Education course. I have a Master’s degree in Engineering. After 20 years in industry, I became a Math and Physics teacher through the alternate route to certification here in Vermont. I have written a published article comparing the difficulties and joys of teaching with those in industry (For the Love of Kids).
  • I have come to the conclusion that an Education degree for teachers and especially for administrators is a detriment to the education of students, not an asset. How much better to bring real life experience to the classroom than the rote prescriptions taught in the Education classes.
  • teachers should be given comparable credits for spending the summer interning for an NGO or a business.
  • This means that almost all schools would rather have a student right out of college with a teaching major and no real world experience than someone who has 20+ years of working in the real world.
  • I wasn’t the best at classroom management, but then I wasn’t so terrible at it either. I was turning into an automaton, and just as alarmingly, my students were too.
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