"Designing Rigorous and Globally Connected Assignments"

Up till this point, I had never heard Allen November speak. Wow! This was by far my favorite presentation to date. It was chalk full of usable ideas that are relevant to what I do in my classroom. One point that he made, which I found very useful, was the use of a teacher or student created search engine. My students waste so much time on Google when researching because there is just too much information. With a search engine that already has predefined, or screened sites, the time wasted sifting through information that is too difficult for them to read is spent actually working. I also LOVED the use of student screencasts! What better way for a student to show his or her learnings than to create a screencast that their peers can use to further their education. I was also blown away by the call to have our students contribute to the world. I am going to check out kiva.org and look into having my kids each bring one dollar to loan someone in another country, follow their progress, research their culture, maybe even link to a classroom.... This was an amazing onslaught of new information. Wow!