Sunday, December 07, 2008

Teachers as good Connectors

Interesting how teaching approaches have gone from "Sage on the Stage" to "Guide on the Side" and now "Connectors." This from a paper by Will Richardson, one of my favorite bloggers, in Edutopia, World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others. Subtitled "How to teach when learning is everywhere."

To quote a snippet: "Inherent in the collaborative process is a new way of thinking about teaching and learning. We must find our own teachers, and they must find us. In fact, in my own kids' lives, I believe their best, most memorable, and most effective teachers will be the ones they discover, not the ones they are given. That's no slight against the people in their face-to-face classrooms, who are equally important in a connected world. But it does suggest that we as educators need to reconsider our roles in students' lives, to think of ourselves as connectors first and content experts second."

Lots more good stuff in the article. Of course, a good teacher is probably a combination of all three: sage, guide and now connector. Will's article also led me to Classroom 2.0, which I joined. This is a social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education. It's a great example of what you can do with Ning.


Visit Classroom 2.0

Yes, one more social network to belong to!