Conversations

This week Lisa, Maria, and Sheila are joined by Brian Crosby for a discussion on taking simple lessons and using them to break down the walls of the classroom.

Our topic for Conversations this week was EarthCast09 which led to a discussion about broadcasting live with students. Sheila shared her experiences in broadcasting with her 7th grade students during EarthCast08. Matt Montagne joined us near the end of the hour to talk more about Earthbridges and EarthCast09 and his students' work with Gator Radio. The chat room was filled with discussion as usual so be sure to check that out too. Please visit the EarthCast voicethread and leave your comments.

In this conversation we focused on the type of student we are creating in our classrooms where we empower them to be in control of their own learning. We discussed what this means when these students leave us and go to another classroom where this does not happen.

Maria shared a conference she attended regarding creating with ones hands and then evaluating those creations.  This led to a lively discussion about different ways to evaluate students.

Today's conversation came from the recent talk of improving education by bringing merit pay into the schools. Maria asked the question, Is Merit Pay the Way? and Sheila identified an essential question, What would be a good 'no-cost' reward to push people to do better or retain the good teachers? Lisa Thumann joined us in the skype call. The chat room was hopping, so be sure to check the chat and listen to the audio.