Week 3 Reading Responses

• Now that there is unlimited potential to celebrate the work of our students with their communities there are many ways to manage this opportunity. It is important to find an appropriate site for students to publish their work. One useful site is Thinkquest.org (November, 2010, p. 44). This is a site where students can publish their projects for others to see. The students are also able to view other students work. Another way to manage this opportunity is through the use of Wikis (Richardson, 2010, p.58). Wikis can be a good tool for students working on group projects. Individual group members can make changes to their specific groups work through the wiki. Other students, teachers, or community members can then view the students' work on the wiki site.

• We can create authentic work and relationships for our students to give them a deeper meaning in relation to complex issues such as globalization and cultural sensitivity in a variety of ways. The first way to to create a better understanding of different cultures is by providing students with opportunities to interact with other cultures. By using real-time video conferencing students can communicate with people of different cultures (November, 2010, p. 40). The act of video conferencing provides authentic learning experiences as students learn about the customs and beliefs of different cultures first hand. Teachers can also have students research global issues from different cultures perspectives to gain insight into how different cultures think (November, 2010, p.40). Another affective means of creating authentic relationships to help our students better understand globalization and cultural issues is through the use of e-mail. Students can e-mail people from different cultures about important issues or with questions they may have. This can create an authentic assessment in the form of a dialogue between students and people with different cultural backgrounds.

• There are many emerging collaborative relationships for teachers. The first emerging relationship is a Teacher's use of reverse mentoring (November, 2010, p. 48). The idea behind this concepts is that teachers can learn from their students. A teacher can ask a student to show them how to use a program that the he or she is unfamiliar with. The teacher can then work what the student already knows into instruction without being formally taught how to use the program. The next form of emerging collaborative relationship for teachers is known as collegiality (November, 2010, p. 50). This is the idea that teachers can learn by building collaborative relationships with other professionals. Teachers can work with other educators to share best practices and ideas they can then incorporate into their own classrooms. Another emerging relationship for teachers is through the feedback of anonymous reviewers (November, 2010, p. 51). The idea behind this concept is that teachers receive anonymous feedback on their posted work and ideas. This can be very helpful to teachers because when a source is anonymous that source is more likely to provide honest feedback. Lastly, teachers can collaborate with parents to create a stronger relationship between home and schools (November, 2010, p. 52). This can be done through the use of videos to involve parents in classroom activities, and ultimately gain a better understanding for what their children are learning.

November, A. (2010). Empowering students with technology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.