Lagniappe for Learning

One of those days – can’t pass up a quick post of diverse and quirky happenings of the day – a trifecta indeed…

1. A fifteen year old student asked me (the old lady) what TTYL and BTW meant – it was a major LOL (so as not to embarrass her, I waited until she left)!  It also made me feel like I might actually have some ammunition for closing the so called immigrant/native gap.                                                                                                                            
2. Our afternoon of inservice included another showing of Shift Happens – an opportunity to review and refocus.  I twitted my disappointment of the lack of documentation.  Despite the important messages in the video, I miss the opportunity to dig deeper into the displayed facts (I have a similar complaint with Friedman’s The World is Flat).  The lack of citations also runs askew to what we are trying to teach our students about digital ethics.  The cool thing was getting a response about the Shift Happens wiki from injenuity (whom I only know via Twitter) within a few moments.  The network connection is definitely a sign of the times!
3. An awesome “feel good” story – a teacher delightfully revealed that he is really reaching his students this year.  His secret?  He’s letting them lead the way!  Though his class does have more flexibility than others, he has discovered that allowing students to help determine direction of content and instruction can lead to learning goals, as well as “learning how to learn”.  His enthusiasm and pioneering is contagious – can’t wait to observe his class in action!

photo credits to jeremy foo’s  so many connections on flickr and aaardvaark’s enthusiasm on flickr