Students at the Centre of Learning

There seems little doubt that student learning is becoming more and more relevant to the needs and interests of individuals. Students are increasingly aware of who they are, of their communities, their roles and of how they as individuals can support and sustain the world around them.

At a school wide level, class representatives and school councils are common place and help to ensure that a student voice informs school-wide policies and programmes.

It was great to stumble across some ‘high stakes’ technology projects that were also putting students at the centre. These projects directly sought the thoughts and opinions of students and used this information to inform policies and programmes at a national level.

Project Tomorrow - 2008
Top Ten Things We Have Learned From K-12 Students About Educational Technology
This power-point briefly describes Project Tomorrow and the 10 findings. Lots of parallels with these findings and NZ findings.
A short document is also available and provides an excellent summary of the findings.

Jevansfutureofeducation021109

View more presentations from rjensen.

EduTopia, writer Sara Bernard, is working on a story and is looking for responses from students to the following prompt:
What if you had to teach the classes you are taking now or something you learned years ago? How would you use technology to do it? What devices, software, games, networks, or applications would you use to help students learn more easily — and have more fun learning?
For instance, imagine that it was your job to teach algebra, Charles Dickens, volleyball, poetry, a foreign language, science, or the Civil War. Would you have your English students use Facebook to create profiles for each main character in Jane Eyre? Would you have them use Garage Band to create a World War II song or the national anthem of a fictional country? Would you use instant messaging or cell phones as tools for classroom discipline? Could you learn math from Mario?
For more info: http://www.ncs-tech.org/?p=2674


Exploring solutions with those directly involved in the problem sounds like a smart strategy to me. Do we do this enough at all levels of the education sector??r