Reading Reflection 8

                Digital tools make it easy for students to share their work and exchange ideas with diverse audiences. Students can use blogs to connect with content experts, to reflect on their own learning, and to engage in global conversations that would otherwise take place. Digital-age projects offer almost unlimited opportunities for branching out from the classroom such as students consulting with experts in the course of researching a particular topic, students communicating with fellow learners, and students becoming more proficient at working in a culturally diverse world.

              The EAST Initiative Model demonstrates the benefits of using technology for a real purpose – to solve problems and make improvements in their communities. The projects make use of geospatial technologies and multimedia tools that are more commonly found in professional laboratories or design studios. EAST students master these sophisticated tools and applications in context while solving community problems that interest them. EAST Initiative started in rural Arkansas in 1996 and has grown to include more than 260 schools in seven states. It introduced novel ways to engage learners who were not successful in a traditional school setting. The EAST model is built on four essential ideas: 1) student-driven learning – students need to be responsible for their own learning, 2) authentic project-based learning – students should be engaged in solving real problems in their communities, 3) technology as tools – students need access to the relevant technologies that professionals use to solve real problems, and 4) collaboration – when students collaborate in teams to pursue authentic projects, they accomplish more than any one person can do in isolation.

                As teachers become more comfortable with the project approach, they sometimes find that students are quite capable of leading their own projects – starting with generating a project idea they care about. Through students leading their projects, students get to become the experts. Students get to research topics they are interested in and get to research it the way the want whether it’s through scholarly journals, newspaper articles, the World Wide Web, consulting with experts, and many other ways. By letting students “lead” their projects, it gives them a sense of responsibility and pride.

                The concepts in this chapter relate to our project because as teachers we need to understand that project-based learning lets students build connections and branch outside of just the school to other areas in the world. It’s also important that as teachers that we let students lead their own projects. By letting students lead their own projects, they become the experts of the topic and generate a project idea that they are interested in.