Classrooms without Walls: The Talking Points

The extension of learning beyond the classroom is a long awaited concept that may have desired but have been unable to capture. This desire to extend learning through the post-holing of knowledge to deeper understandings has been traditionally practiced by non-intrinsic means of giving students homework. These homework assignments were usually an extension of the daily assignment that the student was unable to complete. In connected learning, schools’ opportunities to extend knowledge beyond the classroom become realistic when applying participatory Web 2.0 Literacy.

These are the classrooms where intrinsic motivation becomes the melting pots of social networking tools that prompt the sharing of knowledge obtainment.Connected learning schools are founded on a different set of standards than those schools founded on traditional practices. These are "The Classrooms without Walls," places professional educators, students, parents, and the community are engaged in active learning based upon Literacy 2.0 co-collaborative goals. In the connected school, the role of the educator is to discover expanded technology based learning opportunities. These are opportunities that benefit not only student learning, but also, the school as a whole. If schools are about the improvement of the learning process then schools will need to become connected.

There are many contributing factors that need to be considered in becoming a connected learning school. The nucleus of a connected learning is the development of a successful curriculum integration plan. A plan that adopts Literacy 2.0 tools into the Common Core. Thus, the focus of the plan is to maintain the integrity of shared ideas and to provide structure in the continual adaptive expansion of technology resources.

This blog has been established for the purpose of constructing two talking points about "Creating Classrooms without Walls." These talking points are meant to give each visitor a quick and easy way of staying on track to ideas that support connected learning . The talking points are designed to provide you with the essential questions that you can take with you after each visit. These will be the questions that you can take back to your stakeholders. Questions that are designed to help your school assess their technology needs through relevant data collection and collaboration.

Talking Point One: How is the staff and students rethinking the use of current technology to improve instruction, enhance individualized learning, and facilitate management and operations?