BP1_The Pendulum Has Paused…

  Photo By borkur.net 

Hello, My name is Greg Havens, and I teach fourth grade in Modesto California.  I am so excited about my Challege Based Research Project. For the past several years I have been very frustrated with the way education has been going. When I first started teaching 17 years ago, teaching was an art. We spent a lot of time discovering who our children were. My colleges and I tried our best to provide a safe and positive learning environment for students. Especially those who didn’t always fit the norm. We worked hard to develop the whole child.

Then, with the advent of the standards and accountability movement, It seemed as if we stopped connecting with our students and began to try to mold them into something we wanted them to be, instead of what they were. Over the years I found myself increasingly frustrated with trying to teach to a set of standards in a process that had no personal connections with my kids.

Now however, I feel the pendulum is beginning to turn back. For my CBR project I will be working with my kids to develop different Web 2.0 strategies that help them to develop their academic language. These tech tools in my opinion are just what my kids need to be successful. It has been my experience over the last few years that my kids get most excited doing projects in our computer lab. Everyone is always engaged and they are all done well. So now that the pedagogical pendulum has paused for the moment, maybe it is time to start looking in another direction.

So, with that said I am looking forward to using this blog post to investigate different web 2.0 tools that my kids and I might find useful to use in our classroom, and also in life.