Learning with others

http://kwout.com/quote/9xjgmv7g

I have joined Diigo a couple of years ago and it has helped me a lot. With Diigo I feel more connected to my interests because I follow lots of with whom I learn every single day. I always open my Diigo e-mail updates and bookmark items my e-friends have shared. Besides that, I am always sharing whatever I discover with my network of friends. I guess that at the beginning I had the usual difficulties everyone has, but I am persistent  . Just now I learned some new things when I was trying to teach Lucia how to use Diigo (I never highligh, so I had to learn how to do it to teach her) . I have learned that on the web one never knows everything and we can always learn when sharing and teaching others. I really love the idea of offloading (storing knowledge on my friends) instead of downloading knowledge.  So, I take it easy and do not try to learn everything. I just learn what I can and think I need. The rest, my friends learn for me and I learn something for them in return.

I confess, I have never used Diigo in the classroom. I think the studetns I usually have are too young for bookmarking. I guess that with a group of adults, this would be more meaningful. I would teach them how to work in Diigo and would then create a group for them to share there favorites. From my experiences adults just love to discover that can get rid of the endless list of favorites they have on their pc when they bookmard things the old way.

That is all, I guess.

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Reflection of the week

I guess my students learn everywhere and they do it in many ways. They learn when I give them a conversation task to do, when they do a grammar based activity. They also learn while surfing the web, when they connect to peers and with their teachers.

The curriculum does not provide  much tech-richness. What we teachers need to do is to adapt our curriculum to include some tech-rich ingredients.

I have been using the internet with my students mainly to create virtual classes. I try to create spaces where they can apply what they aready know to improve their language skills. Although, I am mostly happy with my results, I still feel I need to do something extra to empower them, to connect them better, to enhance their learning with these tools.  I am still looking for ways of improving what I have been doing.

I guess what I am still trying to do is to turn my 21st classroom into a learning engine .  I would say that this is the philosopher's stone I have been looking for. I am sure I will find it some day.

I guess that despite the barrier of time, I am engaging my students. I keep trying and I like what I see.

 

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