learning.21st: the class

This quarter I am teaching a new course to 9th graders. It is a first run (with 18 students) and so far it has been very successful. Over the next few blog posts, I want to highlight a few activities from the class and post some of the student blog posts related to the course content.

Here is the official first draft overview...

The course, learning.21st, is a nine week elective designed to directly address the use of technology in the classroom and help the students become proficient with a suite of web-based applications and model skills that will help them become better 21st century students.

Students are largely on their own when applying online skills and resources to school because they are not covered in the traditional classroom or are addressed at drastically different levels. Students may be well versed in the standard suite of education applications, like Microsoft Office, but technology is quickly moving away from such programs to a more user driven, free, and non-licensed platform. Although the computer has been a mainstay in the schools since the early eighties, the web and user defined content is pushing technology from something done in the computer lab to a integral part of the classroom. This course would deliberately teach 21st century learning skills to a population that is increasingly living online but never had a forum to apply knowledge to the academic setting.

Desktop Post-it Note:

This computer sucks!!!!! The internet dosn't work and like a bazillion things pop up. so find a diffrent computer!!!!! somebody thought they were super funny and made it so everything popped up 5 times each!!!! NOT funny!

(this post-it was on a desktop in a student computer lab because someone changed the settings to open every application at startup.)

Poll:

Should schools lock computers down so that kids can't mess with the settings, change desktop images and install Pac-Man Widgets? (This allows students to be less distracted and keeps the over-worked tech support people happier)

Should schools leave computers "open" so that students can use them them way they were intended and deliberately teach students how to maintain and use computers? (This eats into class time, but will always insure that a student can access the built-in camera and change various settings depending on the project.)

I think schools wrestle with this on a day-to-day basis and just wanted to see that people think. Please vote on the poll to the right.