“הכנת התשתית ללמידה”

I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about the tools I will use next term with my classes (21classes? Edublogs? Ning? Wikispaces? PBWiki? MindMeister?) only to discover that what I’m really interested in is preparing the ground for learning.

I don’t want to structure and pre-define. I do not want to create a community or a social network for my students. Instead, I want to create the conditions necessary for the right kind of environment to emerge. Building an environment for the students is likely to result in failure: environments and communities need to be built with the students, with their full participation, through their work and their interactions with and about texts. It’s not just about choosing a blogging platform and letting the kids in. We need to move beyond the traditional approach of “pick the tools, add students and stir.”

Unfortunately, my curriculum is still to a large extent dominated by units, lessons, assignments. Those are the realities of teaching and learning in North America in the 21st century – it’s not about the process, it’s about the product.