Doing School...Differently

I just posted this to my classroom blog, and realized that it also belonged here:

As I prepare for this school year, it is becoming increasingly clear that this will not be a "business as usual" year. With our classroom's expansion onto the web, the very nature of our learning will begin to change drastically. Students in this digital classroom will be challenged - not to learn a set of information or to prepare for state tests, but rather to become creators and innovators on their own. Yes, there will be information learned, but in many ways, that will be the secondary focus behind students learning how to learn and create for themselves.

This will require a lot from the students, but I'm confident that they will be up to the challenge. We need to move past the notion that I (as the teacher) have all of the answers and the students need to "receive" the education that I am "giving" them. Instead, I want to be a facilitator and give my students the tools to develop themselves as learners. As I think back to my own education, I realize that I wanted to have more control, too. I remember coming to a point where I began doing what I knew would make the teacher happy and gave up any of my own opinions and interests. My goal now is to not let that same thing happen in my classroom.

So, welcome to a new way of doing sixth grade. It won't be perfect, and I'm sure that I'll make mistakes along the way, but if I can allow myself to be a member of this community, rather than the leader of it, we'll be moving in the right direction!

Getting My Feet Wet

For anyone who happens to come by this site, please be patient with me - I'm new at this. I had the good fortune to attend a talk by Will Richardson in my school district a few weeks ago, and I came away very motivated and energized to bring myself further into the digital domain than I had ever ventured before.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a technophobe who has been resisting the digital revolution. In fact, I've been supporting it as long as I have taught (could it be ten full years now?). My higher education is in Instructional Technology and Curriculum Development and I'm the technology liaison for my school. I've spent my time in the classroom looking for ways to expand my students' perspectives and learning through the implementation of technology. But, in recent years, I've stopped moving forward. Yes, I'm still working very hard and coming up with new lessons and ideas, but I'm not pushing the envelope as I once had. I plateaued, and only recently did I begin to see where the next challenge is. To truly move forward with education and technology, I have to further explore the world of the web and all the possibilities it affords.

And so, here I am, publishing the second post on my new blog. I've entered into the world of Twitter (ayauchler - feel free to follow!). My students are starting a wiki with a second grade class in our school (which I hope to expand as next year begins). And now, there's so much to do, so many things to explore. I'm moving forward again, and it feels right. I plan to publish often, and I sincerely hope that some of what I post will be valuable to others in the same ways that so much of what I'm reading and experiencing is valuable to me. So please stop back, comment when you can, and I hope to see you around the net.