My New Blog

I've started this blog to use for my professional development with a focus on Technology in Primary classrooms. Things are changing so fast and I expect so much growth in the next few years. My classroom has been fortunate to be relatively technology rich, yet, I still question, how will this technology help my students learn? What will learning look like in the future?

My favorite author- Katie Wood Ray- said, in What You Know By Heart, "because we are teachers of writing, writing for us is more than just the experience of getting it done. We have to have that experience, but because we teach, we also have to be able to explain that experience. We have to be able to make sense of it, to see what it means so that the experience becomes something larger than the moment.... You see, the students who wait for us in our workshops need us to help them understand how this writing things happens. That's why we can't just let it happen. We have to know why it happens. We have to know how."

Substitute learning for writing. And particularly navigating "21st Century" learning. It's not enough for me to blog, tweet, FB, text message, use web 2.0 tools... I have to experience it so that I can explain the experience to the students. They may be "digital natives"- but I know about learning. And it's my job to help them experience the power of learning through these tools.