Learning is Change

Cores 1-4:

1. It is harder for some of us to think outside of what we know, to dream up something completely radical and filled with hope. I would like to thank you for destroying the boundaries of the classroom, if only for one day. Yesterday, I saw so many great ideas shared and built upon. You have made me think harder and longer because of your terrific insights, and obviously that is a good thing. The thing I was most struck by is how little you trusted yourself to learn if you have more freedom to pursue what you wanted to. If the personal curriculum is any indication, I think that you all would do just fine. If you would like to see my favorite excerpts from our discussion (and eventually some of my thoughts about these ideas) you can check out my google notebook.
2. As for our Weekly Authentics this week, I promised you that I would devise a way for you to tell me which post should be counted as your most authentic (and hopefully best) post of the week. Well, that is just the beginning. For a long time I have also been searching for a way to reflect on our Weekly Authentic posts without having to write another post to do it. Some of you have told me that you would like to be able to search through the weekly authentic posts by genre, topic, or date. Enter Del.icio.us. This web site allows us to save all of our “Official Weekly Authentic” posts, describe them using more than a mere title, reflect upon them in a real way, and categorize them so that we can search through them however we want. I will show you how to do this, and then I will give you some other options for using this service. If you need some more help, you can always go to the how-to.
3. Please post your Weekly Authentic for this week, and then work on nominating some of the others that have been posted.

Cores 1-4:

1. Before we start our next major thematic unit based upon curriculum and knowledge that I think is important, I would like us to spend one more day thinking big about what and how we should be learning.
2. I told you yesterday about a English Professor who was using a virtual world as a place to meet for her classes. Well, last night I did a little more research about what kids were doing with second life, and I found a site called Holy Meatballs. This site is actually all about connecting kids around the world to talk about big issues, ideas, and trends in technology, society, and culture. This site inspired me to start a discussion with all of you about what learning can be if we only decide to make it happen.
3. So, I would like all of us to take today and think as big as we can about how learning in your generation can be more powerful than any other. I would like you to start thinking about what a perfect learning environment will look like.

Cores 1-4:

1. Today is all about refocusing our efforts on our Weekly Authentics. I would like to recognize those of you who have been putting going above and beyond in creating our writing community. The following is a list of the most prolific authors of the past 30 days. The number beside the user name is to signify how many posts per day they have done. in the last 30 days. Now, I know that 2 weeks of this thirty days we weren’t in school, so I think that this list will change, but I would like to start posting a most prolific award as well as an Authenticity award so that I can constantly support those of you who have truly made blogging a part of your lives.

   • Iwthswtl

     0.7

   • Shadow222

     0.4

   • Lttlmzperrfect

     0.3

   • Moose

     0.3

   • Rubyredslippers

     0.2

   • Hellomynameisbill77

     0.2

   • Grim15

     0.2

   • Ferildurza

     0.2

   • Thingydingy

     0.2

   • Zevariaxthedragonlord

     0.1
2. Today, and from now on, you will have many more options of what to do with your tech-day Tuesday (or Wednesday in this case).
   • Many of you have chosen online friendly subjects to work on for your personal curriculum. You may continue to work on these projects and use your blog as a type of online notebook. Take notes with it. Figure things out with it. Publish your findings, whether they are in finished form or not. Collect pictures that you will want to use in your project and write about them, link to all of the web pages that you will be using. As long as you have at least one paragraph of real writing somewhere in all of that research, you will be able to use it for your weekly authentic.
   • Many of you have become excited about the idea of blogging about the books you are reading. Go for it. Ask great questions about your characters, look deep into the thematic elements of the books, talk to the characters as if they were real people if you like. There are so many different ways to interact with a piece of reading, find one and start writing. Stretch the boundaries of your blog a little.
   • Some of you have been stringing together your blog posts, making a story out of them. Feel free to continue. Or, if you would rather just post what you have been posting all along. Do that too, but make sure that you are trying new things, pushing yourself to become better and better at blogging and writing in the process. Link to things you wouldn’t normally. Find relevance in someone else’s post. Be the great writer that you are.

Cores 1-4:

1. Go over expectations for the library.
   • Show me your perfect book and AR+ contract.
   • Discuss finding a perfect book.
   • Find a perfect book.
   • Read.
   • If I have to encourage you more than once during the course of the period to read, I will ask you to move and you will lose your participation grade for the day.
2. Go to the library and follow the preceding steps.

Cores 1-4:

1. Write-On: Imagine that there were a perfect book out there for you. It has just the right mixture of content (the stuff it is about) and form (the way it is written). What would it look like?
2. Construct your perfect book on our handout.
3. Fill out Quarter 3 AR+ contract.
4. Go over refined AR+ rules.

Cores 1-4:

1. Making your personal curriculum into a personal project: What is one personal project that you have done that no one else asked you to do?
2. Which of these can we call personal projects and which of them are just something to do?
3. What do you need in order to accomplish your personal curriculum?
4. Searching the internet for what you need:
   • Clusty
   • Rollyo
   • Swicki
5. Collect links for all three of your personal curriculum choices. These things will form the foundation

Cores 1-4:

1. Reset expectations for the quarter.
2. What is a personal curriculum?
3. Brainstorm your personal curriculum with a partner.
4. Write your personal curriculum rough draft on your blog and then proceed to work on your weekly authentic for this week.

Cores 1-4:

1. Complete the reflection and continue to create community.

Core 1:

1. What piece of sabotage do the  “night men” do to the Papa on his way back from Vicksburg.
2. How does Uncle Hammer get the money for the mortgage?
3. Why did Melvin and R.W. beat TJ?
4. Discuss-On: What is the significance of Mr. Morrison’s song?
5. How can you possibly get out of a heated argument that is based upon prejudice?

Core 2:

1. Discuss-On: How can we maintain the moral high ground
2. Read: “Let the dead bury their dead.”
   • Discuss apologizing for war and tragedy.

Core 3:

1. Read the Lean and Hungry look and talk about more real world solutions.

Core 4:

• Work toward paragraphing an idea.
  
• Paragraph your three proofs and write out your examples.