Final Reflection

I believe that the important learning from my apartheid unit project will come when it is implemented in the classroom. I think that much of the eighth grade humanities learning is, in a sense, “confined” to the classroom. That is, while students read texts, view videos, listen to audio, blog with other students and create wikis with other students, there is no live contact or feedback from people outside our classroom. The work that Julie Lindsay and her colleagues have done serves as a model for creating networks of our students along with other students, teachers and adults from around the world.

 Another missing element in our learning is live contact with people who live in the place that the unit is based on. If we are studying apartheid in South Africa, it is highly productive to link up in a learning network with students and teachers from other parts of the world. However, if our learning network contains no one who actually lived in South Africa during apartheid, then a vital element –authenticity - is missing from the learning.

 Finally, given the inclusion of the above two elements in our student learning, it is also necessary to include the element of students taking some action based on their learning. This is the major headline in Clay Shirkey’s book, Here Comes Everybody: that networks of informed and committed people working outside of established organizations can effect enormous social change. To have our students create a global learning network using the latest tech tools but without the action piece is narcissistic at best.