Orchestrating the Collaborative Classroom Workshop

This morning I attended Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano’s Orchestrating the Collaborative Classroom workshop. It was 4 hours of non-stop fantastic information! She based her subject on Alan November’s The Digital Learning Farm. Silvia provided numerous tools (the instruments) and gave examples on how to use them to transform learning. (In this video, Alan talks about the role of the student as contributor).

Silvia showed a number of applications to us and then gave real-world examples of how she uses them with students. We didn’t just listen! We interacted! Many of the tools she shared I have either used or knew about but what made the session so effective is that we were able to see examples of how they were used in the classroom as well as participating in discussions through the actual use of the tools. The notes to Silvia’s workshop are on her wiki.

The Instruments:

Wikis, Blogs, Google Apps, Podcasts, Backchanneling (Twitter, Today’s Meet), Linoit (online stickies; iPad app available), Skype, LiveBinders, Social Bookmarking (Diigo, Delicious)

Today’s Meet, Linoit, and LiveBinders are ones I want to explore further. Today’s Meet would be a good way for even younger students to backchannel (definitely with guidance!). I can think of lots of ways for teachers to use Linoit with students; such as discussing story elements (groups could be in charge of one story element and add stickies, then all could be pulled together on the SmartBoard).

Silvia then talked about empowering learners by having them take on the roles of researchers, notetakers, tutorial designers, curriculum reviewers, contributors to society, collaboration coordinator. She said it’s time-consuming at the beginning, but once students understand their roles, the “concert begins!”

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