For those of you who have been following the site closely, you may have noticed that a few of the recent comments have been by students. I’m not completely sure how they found this site, but I never intended it as a hidden site, so it is available for public search.
When I received the first notice of student comment (I have to approve any comment before it is posted), my first reaction was “keep ’em out.” However, upon further reflection, this strikes me as web 1.0 type thinking. If we take as given that the technological revolution is at least in part about collaborative learning, then having students follow and contribute to these discussions seems an end as well as a means. I also think next year we should involve some interested students directly in our discussion.
At the Consultative School Board yesterday I gave out the URL for this site and invited them to look in on our discussions. I have also invited representatives from other schools to look in and comment.
Since this is a school site, it will remain a moderated site. I will preview all comments before they are posted, but I continue to encourage different opinions.
So this blog tent is a bit bigger, and I think that is a really good thing.
Mr. Dhuyvetter,
I personally love how you are publicly taking the modernization of Mater Dei to a new level. I would have never in a million years have dreamed of anyone of such high status to take time out of their day to sit down and blog (Actually, it’s rather addicting).
But down to business.
First things first, I was the one who discovered the link to this blog, and I shared the link (around early January-ish) and I have followed it ever since. I shared it with Owen Kuemerle, who has actually commented a few times. I can admit to being too shy of stepping out of my boundries and actually commenting on an administrator’s blog, which was potentially private, and could contain sensitive school information (if it did, I would turn myself in and admit that I knew it. Mr. Millis can vouch for me.). So I have simply been following along reading the blog, and for nearly every post writing out a multi-paragraph comment on the good points and bad points of your ideas, but I could never build up the will power to hit Submit Comment. Too daunting of a task for me.
As you can see in this ( http://mdtech.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/another-alternative/#comment-36 ) comment over here, I have my own ideas of how education in the future should be, and I have even taken things into my own hands. Tomorrow morning, in multimedia lab #2 I will even be hashing out a comment to this (http://mdtech.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/a-modest-proposal/#comments) post. I feel that a student should have a say in the part as to how they learn, even though they (by tradition) shouldn’t. I have a ton of ideas that I’d love to just let loose, even spark ideas for potential applications in the future.
What I’m trying to say is that it is good that you are actually bothering to look at a students input and that I’d love to sit down and have a casual chat and share our ideas and discuss on how they would work on an educational, administrative, and technical level. If you want to do this you can find me in aeries as Alexander Guichet or you can simply contact Mr. Millis. I will be more than willing to meet with you after school or whenever you feel is appropriate.
Alex Guichet
http://alexguichet.com
MD Sophomore