Thursday, March 18, 2010

What do YOU see as the future of Education

I read George Sieman's request for help Defining the Future of Education at the same time a student at my school came seeking my assistance doing the same. He is working on his State Mandate senior graduation project and is examining learning theory, how people learn, and how technology is impacting schools. His original plan was to do an "in school" panel and have the teachers at our 1:1 high-school share their thoughts, but as he started his research he realized that he wanted to use the tools and ideas he was reading about and bring in a larger audience of educators for his application project. He asked me to send the following out to my network:
Subject: My E-mail to the educators
Hello,

My name is Andrew Wisniewski and I am a senior at Upper Merion Area High School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. For my end of the year project I have decided to explore education and how technology is changing how students learn. Ms. Hokanson has helped me by creating a drop box and by forwarding this email to all of you. You can help me by visiting, http://drop.io/FutureEd and leaving me your thoughts about the future of education. In my drop.io, you will see that you can upload a picture, a text note or even call the dropbox.
Here are some ways you can share your thoughts
  • Go to http://drop.io/FutureEd and upload a file, record or add a note
  • E-mail a note, picture or video clip futureed@drop.io
  • Call 646-495-9205 x 95270 and leave your message via voice-mail
Please describe your role in education and let me know how you feel technology can change education; not only presently but also in the future. If it is fine with you, please state your name and with your permission I may contact you again regarding this subject. This will be an excellent addition to my presentation and I appreciate your insights about education.
I would be grateful for any input you can provide.

Thank you so much for your time,
Andrew Wisniewski

You can see the beginning of Andrew's work here...
• Andrew Wisniewski • Mr. Schurtz •

His classroom teacher has a closed ning community where the students are documenting the process of this project. Andrew has taken a number of classes through Virtual High School (VHS) so has had some unique experiences. His plan is to take the ideas, images, video clips and calls to create an iMovie to share with his classmates and perhaps have his classmates leave messages for future students (using some of these tools as well) about how to be successful in a 21st Century Learning Environment. Really his project will evolve as he gets more feedback from all of YOU....so how about it? Why not visit Andrew's drop.io and leave YOUR thoughts about the future of education.