Anyway, what is our shared purpose? First I will comment on your ideas. 1. You mentioned managing your online presence. I totally agree with this. We all have heard stories of people not getting hired because of something found online. I recently heard a story of a principal being hired because of what was online. Managing an online presence should be a graduation exit task. 2. Using digital tools to inform, create, collaborate. Again, to what end? What are educators asking students to do with these digital tools? I will be asking all my AP psych students to blog this year. Why? Because after blogging for a year I realized what it does for my thinking. Now, what will they write about? I will be having them read some psych blogs and subscribe to psych news and they will have to blog about what they find. We will build a classroom wiki with an emphasis on vocabulary connections to pictures, videos, and personal experiences. Once a student to teacher assignment, now all student experiences and ideas will be shared. 3)Use frameworks such as “Habits of Mind” to organize and cultivate skills. Whether it’s the updated version of Blooms or Habits or something else, it does help teachers to set other non-technological goals before thinking about selecting from a wide variety of tools.

I think problem-based challenges are highly effective (even more so when not in the context of a simulation). I always hear that this type of classroom structure is time-consuming and we get “too much content” argument (especially in my Social Studies dept) as well as the demands of a standardized state or national test. It takes a great deal of creativity and risk to set break from business as usual.

I am willing to take that risk this year. Now, the real work begins…creating meaningful problem-based projects for a course that requires an understanding of over 1000 vocabulary words. Now, I just had an idea. I’m going to challenge my AP Psych list-serve to post problem-based projects to a wiki for all of us to share. There’s a shared purpose.

1. Help students develop their capacities for good decision-making and ethical judgement. This relates to Internet safety in many ways, one of the most basic is “think before you post.” Realizing that Google is creating virtual portfolios on all of us know, and the best way to address the issue of “my online identity is out of control” is to take control and directly manage it with intention / purpose.

2. Promote the visible, constructive uses of digital tools to both develop individual skills, but also for the demonstration effect of those uses upon communities which are (in many cases) very conservative and far from “sold” on the value of digital technologies to help students both access content as well as create and collaborate.

3. Promote pedagogic changes in our classrooms and schools through a variety of avenues. Ted Sizer’s “habits of mind are a good framework of skills we need to cultivate, but amidst our standards-focused educational climate in the U.S. we often don’t have those sorts of ideas in mind as a focus.

I agree that “we need problems to solve,” and would argue there are plenty of “problems” all around us that students can utilize digital tools focus community attention and action efforts. Students can become local community activists for these problems. This is happening in some schools, but I don’t perceive it to be a “norm” in Oklahoma schools for certain.

What do you think our “shared purposes” are or should be, Dave?