Dean Shareski was our guest speaker last week via skype or something else, I can't remember. One of the questions that really stood out to me was "If all things can be delivered online, why do
kids still come to class?" And the answer was RELATIONSHIPS. It seems, however, that the social aspect of school is taking place mostly in the hallways and on breaks instead of the classroom.
Relationship building needs to take place in the classroom; student-students, teacher-student and teacher/students-world. Relationships are what students will remember long after they have graduated.
I I want to focus a little bit on the teacher/student-world relationships that can be built through the digital world. As a classroom there are many ways that we can build relationships outside of our own little world. Some of the ways this can be done is through having guest speakers via skype. For example, if students are learning about space, why not have an astronaut who is in space skype in and show the students what its like in space. Students learn as well as connect with people they have never met. Other ways of building relationships would be through sharing student work. Dean talked about when a student brings home a picture or a project or whatever it may be, at home it will probably get 4 views and maybe 2 comments where as if the students displays his/her work on youtube, for instance, they would get more like 14 289 views and a whole lot more comments. As students post their work online, people see it and they begin to ask questions and students begin to build relationships with people they don't even know.
The digital world opens doors for students to view other people's work as well as learn from it. But the most important part is that student begin to build relationships that can continue on for years to come!
