Blogging, Gadgets, and Cyber School for Dropouts

Somehow I managed to do the reading for this week's class last week and talked briefly about it in the first post to my blog. Some of the points of interest for me this week relative to this class...it is possible to install too many Gadgets on a blog! I went crazy going through the list of gadgets and before I knew it, I had everything on there from the Puppy of the Day photo to the ESPN feed to the "beautiful sunset of the day" photo. I think most of us talked in class about how the experience of blogging is a work in progress. I strive to be a blog savvy as Candace :) So again, this blog is a work in progress. Fun to follow everyone though.

I found a very interesting article on the Ed Tech site that Patrick asked us to look at (http://edtechmag.com/k12/index.php) that discussed how one Pennsylvania school dealt with revenue loss as the result of students dropping out of high school. This school started a cyber school for dropouts as well as those students who simply did not fare well in the traditional high school setting. In this case, it has been working so well that the school site might generate a profit for the next school year that they offer this. Historically I think this might be the type of thing that would have made me cringe, however, this plan was well laid out with ways for attendance to be accounted for and also ways for students to get video tutoring from teachers. It reinforces the fact that we must continue to redefine education -- which was also discussed in great deal in the Participatory Culture reading. Educational gaming, collective intelligence, social networking -- those concepts were definitely not in play at the high school I went to. I think what is most interesting and also challenging to me is the redefining of education -- what has traditionally, historically been expected versus what does and does not work -- and what moves not only us as educators, but our students forward into the 21st century.