Sunday, July 16, 2006

What I learned this year

The beauty of teaching is that you can make a living by learning. Every day during the school year I wake up, make a latte or two, whip up some lunches for the fam, strap on my laptop bag, and walk the half-block to my school. Then I get to help teens (and me) along the path of self-actualization. It's a simple existence, but I like it. This year I learned more about human nature, but for this post I'll limit it to what I learned in the tech world that's actually helped my teaching. Specifically, one of the things that I think has a lot of potential for improving education is online collaboration.

One of my classes participated in a PBwiki project. I'll do more with that technology and more wiki collaborations with other schools next year. In the very near future more schools will be collaborating more often, and I can't help but think that the world could use a little more education -- a little more peace, love and understanding these days. Since we did that I've thought more about the people who are creating those online collaboration places. Writely is getting a lot of press these days, but what about Writeboard or ZohoWriter? Does anybody out there think one of these three is the best? Or is there another one that I've overlooked?

No comments: