We had our Tapped-In session on Monday (9/17) to begin the discussion as a group about our ARPs. I started to get a better feel for what my ARP will be and how it will tie in with ED664. I'm still looking at:
- Move more communications from paper and email to a database application so that it is easier for my students and me to have conversations and projects tracked through the year.
- Develop a deeper sense of community amoung my students so that they don't perceive "learning" as just the short time they spend with me each day.
Note that the first is really just a subset of the second. It's time for me to expand on this and post it to the 638 newsgroup for feedback.
Bridgette and I had dinner with the Piccottos last night and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chris had set up his own Linux box with Apache server at his home over DSL. Since he was using NAT and not fixed IP, he had a couple of neat tricks to periodically check his IP and update the authoritative DNS for his domain. He offered me space on the server since he has a gigaherz processor but is hardly using it. There may be advantages here since he does this "just for fun" and can provide some tech expertise that I can't find here. He has set up message boards and sendmail, so he is familiar with that.
posted by Derrel Fincher at 9:24 AM
Today I had the first meeting with Dan Smith and Glenn Hoskins. I have asked both of them to be on my ARP/Plan B committee because they both provide unique insights into the classroom and into what technology can do for them. I'm excited about the opportunities of the collaboration as well as what we can do with it. I'll look at what Glenn did last year and see if it's possible to continue or expand it the work. Three main points came up:
- Whatever I do, it needs to be student-centered, not teacher-centered.
- Technology is most useful when it expand or extends what can be done, not when it merely replaces good things that are already being done.
- I need to make the project my own, which will involve a shift of focus two or three times during the initial phase.
posted by Derrel Fincher at 5:02 PM
