Once again I’ve had a wonderful time participating in live blogging A Whole New Mind with students from Arapahoe High School. I wish I had time to do more – it’s an amazing experience.
This year I joined up for two classes, discussing chapters in the book by Daniel Pink. Using MeBeam, we could hear the students adding depth to their personal ideas, and challenging each other to think more deeply about the implications of each of the chapters for their schooling, their lives and society.
Karl Fisch set this up again this year at the A Whole New Mind 09 wiki. It’s the beginning of the year for me, so it’s not easy to help out much – this year two sessions had to be my limit. But the last class on the ‘roster’ happens to be at 6:15 am, so I can make it and still get to school. You can read more about the fishbowl discussion technique. Drop over to the CoverItLite replay of the blogging discussions.
My chapters for involvement this time were Empathy (where I caught up with Julie Lindsay, wonderful aussie who is head of Information Technology at Qatar Academy in Doha.) and Meaning.
I loved saying hi! to the students. Their efforts were very impressive – wonderful thoughtful discussions. Likewise, the students blogging, who were also listening to the conversation, were extending their thinking in a number of ways, responding to our feedback, throwing out questions to us, and holding their own once again in terms of highly valuable and reflective discussion.
It at wonderful way for me to start the year. It reminds me of the goals we are working towards at our school – embracing technology in immersive and interactive ways to promote 21st century learning of the best kind.
Karl is an inspiration to us downunder, providing concrete evidence of success in changing the way we manage our learning environment. Karl’s work helps me keep my focus.
Special thanks to the students who shared their thoughts with their external visitors. Next year when the call for people to be involved goes out I highly recommend that you consider joining in. It’s easy, and a great way to see 21st century learning in action.
judyoconnell.com 
Judy, thanks for voicing and ‘blogging’ in support of this activity. I also commend Karl and his teachers at Arapaho. As usual the experience of live blogging with the students and teachers was a learning experience for me as much as for them. I think this concept is important as the experience itself puts us all on the same level. The second session I attended for the season I found very demanding as students were asking very insightful questions.
Great to catch up with you as well!
Judy,
Thanks so much for again giving of your time and talents to help our students explore empathy and meaning. We’re grateful that you get up so early to help us out, and your comments always push our students’ thinking (and, for that matter, the adults’ thinking as well).
Have a great start of the school year!
This is great. We need to do more things like this in the United States. We have several groups that are dedicated to these kinds of activities (at least I think we do), but therein lies the problem.