Weekly Reading - Dec 1

From Converge Magazine, Fall 2006, article about Fort Wayne (p. 22), Mayor Graham Richard has a vision to build a city that is "wired and inspired".

Franke Park Elementary - the Mouse Squad. "We're making students responsible for teaching teachers...to set up a computer or the video conferencing equipment. These are not 'A' students. They are the kids who need some responsibility and need to build their self esteem". p. 26

Speaking of videoconferencing, Mayor Richard: "We do digital town hall meetings from my conference room to government classes where I am just there. The kids can all see me, they can see each other and they can ask me questions."

And my personal favorite from this issue. Question was posed to a series of influential panelists: "What do you predict to be the next big thing for education technology?" The usual suspects: kids will have PDA's, classrooms will have stuff, big networks. The best response was from a 14 year old high school student: Freeing students from substandard teachers and boredom are the biggest challenges. I'd like to see textbooks totally replaced by Web-based learning sites that are fun, personalized and up-to-date like MySpace.com, but connect people for learning, not just to chat. Out of the mouths of babes, so to speak.