Week of October 16, 2005

It's fascinating to see how technology's being used in academic settings these days - at school and at home. Everywhere I look in the media, I see illustrations of how tech is motivating students in traditional classrooms and facilitating learning for those who work better outside of school.

Out of the classroom. Washington, D.C.-based ConnectforKids.org reports that some 500,000 students are now taking courses over the Net, "the majority as a supplement to their work at traditional schools, and some as full-time cyber-students," and 22 states have virtual public schools. For students engaged in distance learning, computers aren't motivational tools, they're essential for teacher-student communication, class discussion, and research. And "cyber-students" - whether they're traveling professional actors or athletes, incarcerated, too ill to attend regular school, or gifted and needing extra stimulation - are very comfortable around Net-related technologies, of course. They're among the 90% of US kids aged 5-17 who use computers. ConnectforKids tells how learning works over the Net, looks at the pluses and minuses of virtual schooling - for both students and educators - and links to examples of virtual schools in different parts of the country.

Blogging in class! Mr. Fisher in Manitoba spends a chunk of every evening updating his 7th- and 8th-graders' blogs, CNET reports ("blog" is short for "Web log," an online journal or mini Web site usually with a social element to it). "He's more than glad to do it," CNET says. "Like other teachers bringing blogging into the classroom, he thinks the online journals will spark students' enthusiasm for computers, writing and opining." Bloggers develop a voice, feel heard, because readers can post comments after their blog entries. The article links to some examples of student blog posts around the US and looks at some new tools that make classroom blogging safer, less public - just for classmates.

Poems in podcasts. In Ms. Gagliolo's classroom in Virginia, 5th-graders record their poems, book reports, interviews and sounds on field trips, etc. and turn them into podcasts, the Washington Post reports. Podcasts are the personal "radio shows" that more and more people are creating, that can be downloaded to an iPod or other MP3 player, and that Apple now provides for free in iTunes' podcast directory. In fact, Ms. Gagliolo's students could submit their podcasts to iTunes for the listening public! Other examples, the Post mentions: "In a private school near Detroit, middle-schoolers podcast performances of student-composed musical works. From East Oakland, Calif., high-schoolers paint an audio portrait, in English and Spanish, of their troubled community."