Thursday, January 3, 2008

If you had your druthers

If you could create a class, perhaps one that exists in the schools you are all talking about at Clay's post, what it would be structured like?

I ask this for a very specific reason: we are creating new classes and we'd love to push the envelope a little and create them based on the ideas of the 21st Century Collaborative. We want this:





Our basic frames we are working with are the following:

  • Music Production using editing software
  • Internet marketing
  • Documentary film making
  • Graphics with an eye on Adobe CS3, but open to interpretation
  • Video analysis in science

Is anyone doing something similar, and if so, what works? Also, if you could do any or all of these, how would you do it?

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hadn't run across Clay's meme until today but, apparently, I answered it on New Year's day anyway.

Unknown said...

Dan,

Solid ideas, grounded in the ultimate of practicality. And, as always, the design aspect is impeccable.

Visualization of data begs to be recognized in our future, and now. With so much available data being generated, there has to be multiple ways of sensemaking for people to digest it.

Carolyn Foote said...

What I'm thinking about is interdisciplinary and meaning-making.

How do you take the courses and tie them to other courses the students are taking? I wrote today about the idea that bringing disparate elements together helped generate new ideas. So I could see doing something like that with these courses.

I like the idea of the course not being the technology not "attached" to something else, if that makes sense?

I'll be interested to see where you all go with these courses!

Unknown said...

Carolyn,

Our ideas for tying them to other courses they are taking goes is to have a cohort of teachers teaching the classes, meaning that each semester a different element would be brought into each class. For example, in internet marketing, the first semester might deal solely with the changing economic landscape brought about by globalization and the internet itself and be taught by a social studies teacher. The second half of the class might be taught by someone who is grounded in design elements to help them with the visual aspects of creating their product.

Very grey areas right now, but we are aiming high.