What I Wish For

Yesterday, I asked what you hope/wish will be in your classroom, when you report back to work in August or September — that wasn’t there last year. The responses on Twitter were immediate and continued, with several people recently retweeting (RT) the request for input.

The graph on the left represents the responses, at this moment, based on my interpretations. Some tweets delivered more than one message, for instance, indicating a wish for 1:1, more computers, and netbooks, all in the same tweet. I found it interesting that only 5% of the messages seemed to directly or indirectly reference budget cuts. The rest are wishes I would have expected to see anytime.  It is also noteworthy, the number of tweets that asked for administration and fellow staff who were more willing to try new things — innovate.

From The Next Web blog entry

Anyway, I found my wish this morning, while spending just a few minutes dashing through my RSS reader.

Londoners may soon have something new to look (at) while they travel around the city. A plan has been announced that would allow people to upload their own works of art to a website and have them displayed on the rooftops of bus shelters around the city. ((http://thenextweb.com/2009/06/09/networked-lcd-screens-turn-bus-stops-art-galleries/))

It works like this.  You produce photographs, paintings, digital art work, cartoons, whatever, and you upload them to the Bus.Tops web site.  They are viewed by people on the web, who vote for the art of their liking.  The images with the most votes get displayed on the tops of bus stops and down from the ceiling for bus stop patrons.

Now here’s what I wish for.  A school that works like this — where at least part of the goings on of the school is run by the learners.  For instance, you set LCD displays around the school tied into a central low-end computer serving up images.  Encourage students to upload their own art work (or other images that reflect all levels of learning) and allow students and teachers to vote for them.  There would likely need to be some oversight, but that shouldn’t be too hard to incorporate.

The artwork recommended by the most learners gets displayed in a rotating fashion through the school and out, through the school’s web site and perhaps other venues in the community.

What I wish for is schools that are less schooly. ((Schooly is a term used frequently and probably coined by Clay Burell, to represent the traditional business of schooling as opposed to the timely business of learning.))

Powered by ScribeFire.