Quest to Learn

I just finished listening to a podcast from National Public Radio on a recent addition to schools of alternative learning. A new school in New York, Quest to Learn, is focused around the idea that children learn best through video games. The philosophy behind the school is that video games are essential to 21st century learning and literacy. The public school has students work together in a virtual town, Creepytown, to complete ten week missions. In a recent mission Creepytown entered a recession of its own and students were challenged to figure out how to make money and bring Creepytown back to life.
Listening to this podcast, all the children interviewed loved what they were doing. The teachers, students, and parents believed wholeheartedly in the mission of the school and in the success they think it will have. I am unsure about learning through video games. I was never successful in the virtual world. I did, however, once beat a few levels of Spyro the Dragon under close surveilance of my older brother, and I know how to play Pong. I think its safe to say that I am not the audience the school is looking for. I have no idea how effective video games will be in teaching and learning, but having heard the excitement in everyone's voices I believe the students will learn a lot in the Quest to Learn environment. Any school that gets children excited about learning can only be a good thing in my mind. I will be intersted to see how things progress as Quest to Learn enters its second year.

Maymont Preschool

I am incredibly excited abut the prospects of the Maymont Preschool. The city of Richmond has decided to take one of their schools that has just closed and reopen it as the Virginia Preschool Initiative. The head start programs from schools around Richmond are going to be relocated to Maymont Elementary school. In my mind this is a hugely positive change. In elementary schools the head start programs tend to be separated from the rest of the school and when the preschool children do walk through the halls or eat in the lunch room, they are surrounded by children twice their size. It will be filled with age appropriate resources and teachers who are trained for this age group. The head start programs at RPS were good, but with all these resources and teachers in the same building things can only improve. However, since this announcement parents have been making it clear that they are not happy about the change.

The parents in opposition are primarily the parents of students who were supposed to be enter William Fox and Mary Munford elementary schools. These schools are arguably the best public elementary schools in Richmond. Both schools have to use lottery systems to fill any empty spots for out of zone children. William Fox took on the lottery system after parents started sleeping outside the school the night before registration to ensure a good place for the first come first serve policy. Needless to say these parents are very active and vocal about their childrens' education. Among the arguments against the relocation are difficulties with transportation, losing spots in future kindergarten classes, and a delayed start in learning Spanish.

While I understand that these parents were blind sided by an unexpected change, I believe they need to calm down for a few minutes and think about the benefits of such a program. This school will be focused entirely on preparing students for kindergarten. They will have a firm understanding of all the basics heading into school the following year, and most importantly they will be surrounded by people who understand them. These preschool students will no longer be the children that are rarely seen, they will be the focus of the entire school. This can only improve the quality of their learning.

Podcasting

I just completed my first podcast. As an assignment for my Technology in Education course, I was required to select an SOL and make a podcast to help me teach it. I have never been a technology person, and I was not excited about this assignment. I was struggling to understand why a teacher would give her students a voice recording instead of talking to them herself (or himself). I flipped through all of my print offs of the SOLs and finally decided on a topic: the continents. However, now that I had a topic, I had to find someway to convey it to my students via podcast.

I played with several ideas before finally deciding how to go about this. I decided to use my podcast as a radio skit and I wrote my script. Next I had to call my next door neighbors to help me out (ages 7 and 10). I have helped them with their homework countless times so I figured it was only fair that they return the favor. They however, decided there needed to be a little more on the table before they were convinced. So three dollars and a bowl of ice cream later they were on board. I printed off their scripts and we were ready to go.

After a few more hours the recording, editing, and images were all complete. I was definitely relieved to be beyond the assignment. It wasn't perfect, but it was my first attempt at pod-casting. However, looking back I realized I found that while doing my podcast I thought much more about how this podcast would effect my learners than i had before when using other mediums. I thought about what was being said and how I might help kids to understand what I was teaching. During the process of making my podcast I didn't understand why it might be important. I realize now that I was thinking of pod-casting as replacing active teaching in someway, but actually it is something that could benefit both teachers and students.