Can you fight the wind?

If the change is right it will occur. Sometimes you're just the one who plants the seed, you don't get to see the harvest. It reminds me of Johnny Appleseed, popping seeds into the ground. He doesn't see them grow but someday when he gets old he might be back by and able to enjoy the shade and a tasty snack from his planting.

How can authentic learning tools improve student engagement and deepen learning? What does the

How can authentic learning tools improve student engagement and deepen learning? What does the

apprenticeship model tell us about learning?

Authentic learning tools act to mimic real life experience. Too often much of student learning is seen as being outside of experience. What use is this going to be to me when I am not in school. To be authentic means simply to be real. To apply the scaffolding model to the learning: if it isn;t real, it won't be retained or used in the long-term.

Apprenticeship is the ultimate in job learning-for good reason. All the theory in the world cannot prepare you for your first day in a new experience. Knowing what a pen, pencil or computer is, being able to recognize a keyboard, learning to add up columns of numbers, will only in the most basic and general terms allow you to be able to suceed.

Hope for Technology in Education.

Below is a note from a teacher I have been working with. She has been doing projects all year with her students in elementary. The laptops she is using are older and "memory-challenged". Additionally, after an entire year of projects they have gotten fragmented and are not performing well. They need to be reimaged. Not wanting to lose the time for re-imaging, I have suggested several simple solutions. What is really cool is that one solution I discarded because I thought it would be too complicated, is the solution the teacher came up with on her own.

• Well, I solved the iMovie problem. I don't really understand what is causing the problem, the drives do have 12.53 gb of space. We are going to record in Garage Band on my computer, export an MP3 file and Import it into iMovie. It works and may even be a better way to go.

Good for you! The biggest problem with technology in education often is not the technology; it is a teacher who just gives up entirely when they encounter a glitch. If it is important to a students education, (and it is...), you work through it. "The best laid schemes, ( or lesson plans) o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley...".

Memories of a successful Learning Experience

A tough one this. Not being a teacher and having to come up with "a successful learning experience I designed" However, I can think of one. Years ago, I ran a workshop on internet applications for Upward Bound while I was getting my degree. I focused primarily on Internet searching and source citation and set them up with email accounts on the university email system so they could do email "pen-pals". I contacted two schools: one in Wisconsin and one Iowa, (Simon and Mary were the teachers names) and also put the students on to what used to be penpals.net (but has now become unrecognizable) so they could converse using email.
This was the early 90's-the web hadn't yet become what it is today. Email was primarily a business or paid service, yahoomail and the rest hadn't taken off.
Most of these kids were amazed at what you could find, and shocked to discover that not all of it was true. From course evaluations I learned that they enjoyed the email and felt more connected to other students. Many asked if they could retain the accounts after they left so they could continue the conversations.
Many of these students wouldn't print 3 sentences but were regularly sending 15 to 20 email messages a session. I was using floppy disks for email storage for security and continually had to supply additional floppies as their "mailboxes" became full.
I had designed it to be an introduction, a primer; with some fun thrown in. I wanted it to be an academic information course as well. Things got off track more than once but I think I succeeded in those aspects. More importantly I think I learned something as well-when you trying too hard to get something across sometimes you have better success if you let go a little,