Imagine My Surprise!

Well, I checked the blog and the listserv and the wiki before heading off to bed last night. Then I got up early this morning and checked all again. A few notes and some randome thoughts and I left a few replies. Then I went off to a meeting arriving back in Newark just a few minutes before class.

Little did I know that between breakfast and lunch a windstorm of conversations had taken place on the blog and the listserv. And of course, no one tipped me off in class.

As I read through all of it, however, I am struck by how closely your questions follow the lines of thinking I was attempting to draw out in class today. Yes, the project is unclear. Yes, the requirements are emerging as you get a better picture of what good integration is. Yes, the process is very much what your students will experience if you change your teaching style.

There is one more thought I'd like to share with you as you try to think freely about that project. That is, that we have discussed whether the "product" or the "process" is more important. In my mind, the "product" of this class is not the unit or the essay you'll be producing, those are only observable manifestations. The "product" I have as a goal is changes in your teaching behaviors and attitudes. I hope you leave with a mindset that allows you to evaluate your practice continually and to harness new technologies as they emerge.

So, if the project isn't great and doesn't score well on the rubric, do you get a "D" or "C" in the class??? Well, you get the idea.