The Alchemist's Blog

Recently, in his Weblogg-ed blog, (link at http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/lifelong-teachers/) Will Richardson makes the following comments: ".......So when we reframe our goals in the classroom to include having our students teach as a way to learn, we make an important shift, one that we as educators all know the power of. . . . . . . .We talk a lot about creating lifelong learners. What if we thought more about creating lifelong teachers? Would the learning be a natural outcome? Would the learning be deeper? Would our learners be more passionate if they were asked to share their learning with others? "
As an example of this approach he points to the podcasts from Bob Sprankle’s Room 208 kids. this is interesting on several levels. First, it is fascinating to see how professionally these grade school kids develop the structure of the podcast, but even more important is the enthusiasm that prevails. Perhaps all grade school classes are this enthusiastic, but I doubt it.

This brings me to my second point, which is the one I think is most significant, much of the argument, pro and con, regarding using social networking for teaching seems to turn on the question of which is more important, the process or the product. Will proposes that asking students to play the role of teachers provides them with an experience that is at least as important as any information that they may gain from the process. I agree. I suspect that in order for social networking to move beyond the current early adopters and become commonplace in college classrooms, it is necessary to accept that this is not the most efficient way to learn factual material. It is, however, the best way for students to become life-long learners and even teachers. That is more important than any facts that they may miss out on in the process.

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