Stream Team from Wendy Krentz Smith on Vimeo.

Photo Credit: Will Lion

This photo and post came through the ole aggregator today from the Remote Access blog authored by Clarence Fisher a classroom teacher up North in remote Canada. 

Thought that title might get your attention and no, this isn't a backdoor or loophole for you to seek out to use someone elses intellectual property.  This is an example of how one teacher, Maura Kerkezis, used a creative way to teach students about copyright and to produce their own content based on ideas from others. 

While her students were producing their own Public Service Announcements, Maura notice the majority of students picking photos off of Google Images to use within their projects.  Apparently, this sparked a discussion around whether they could just take someone's photos and the concept of copyright.  Interestingly, she encouraged students create or recreate their own photos.

This is what I would call peripheral learning.  This was not part of the curriculum.  At least, not part of the Health curriculum.  Learning that takes place along side a larger goal, learning that supports the larger goal and subsequent other learning goals. This is one of the concepts I think we, as educators and learners ourselves, need to keep in mind when venturing forth with designing and taking part in new learning experiences. 

Most educators find, while infusing technology into learning experiences, that they learn so much more as an educator and learner. 

When might have your students (or you) experienced peripheral learning?

The River City Project - Part II

As with any learning experience involving technology there were a lot of questions, concerns, and hurdles around the immersion of a whole class of students in a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE).  Facing this implementation was a hurdle of having enough computers to provide each student with a laptop.  The challenge?  Mrs. Rauh's classes varied in size with two (2) classes with approximately 12 students and  two (2) classes of 29 students each.  Not only did we need at least 29 laptops we needed them to be reliable and have good connectivity.