— Lou Douros, Co-founder
Posted: 10/09/08
Freepath Focus on Users - Sue Hellman and Debra Swain
This is the first is a series of posts focusing on how people are using Freepath in education, business and their personal life. If you are a Freepath user and want to be featured or know someone doing something interesting with Freepath, send a note to Dave Giusti, Freepath’s Community Manager at dave dot giusti at freepath dot com.
Sue Hellman and Debra Swain are teachers in a small alternative secondary school in White Rock, BC, close to Vancouver, Canada. They have collaborated many times throughout their careers in the classroom and are united in their desire to integrate blended learning into the classroom to keep students engaged and excited about new ideas.
Sue and Debra are presenting a session entitled “Small Changes; Big Returns: Integrating Web-based Tools and Resources,” at the Innovative Learning Conference in San Jose California, on Wednesday, October 15.
Join Sue and Deb’s group “bigreturns” on myFreepath and check it out.
What is the core of your perception of the integration of new tools into the classroom?
Students learn more from teachers they know care enough to forge a connection. We need to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable by taking some steps into their technological world and then guide them confidently into our world from a place at their side.
What really interests us is that there are a lot of smart young people out there developing easy-to-use tools to make tech-challenged people like us look good. These tools enable our kids to produce work they can be proud of and that they can share with the world. Such tools eliminate a lot of the struggle they used to endure to get the job done. They can concentrate on the message rather than on the construction.
How do you balance the use of “leading edge” tools with the normal time requirements as teachers?
Simply put, the flexible structure of the learning environment in our alternate school allows Debra and me to have the luxury of being able to make the time needed to learn and implement “leading edge” tools. The self-paced instruction gives us the time to breathe, to think, to collaborate, and to learn new and interesting technology in a non-frantic, non-stressful manner, and to launch center-wide projects like PowerPoint for Peace and our Earthcast’08 presentation,
Your presentation at the upcoming Innovative Learning Conference is entitled Small Changes; Big Returns: integrating Web-based Tools and Resources. Can you give us a high level overview of what the focus of this session will entail?
The two of us collectively have been teaching for more than 50 years, and although we know that education should be a dynamic process, it is very easy for seasoned teachers to become complacent about the design and delivery of new educational material. With our students’ lack of self-direction and our own need for professional renewal converging, Debra and I decided to start making some “small changes” in our classroom delivery – i.e. incorporate a PowerPoint activity, try an essay template set up like a fill-able form, add links to video files and animations, and use the Google research engine to find information in all content areas.
Then, with the discovery of Freepath it all came together. It became the delivery tool that would enable us to incorporate these changes into a well designed lesson plans and package the new lessons for the students. Freepath is meets the criteria for our ‘tools of choice’ because it’s so easy to use and the company support is so good. With simple drag and drop moves, lessons can be created that allow students to work independently in a medium they are used to while at the same time allowing Debra and me to help those students who require direct instruction. The students benefit because they are involved more effectively in their own learning process, and Debra and I benefit because our passion has once again ignited.
On your blog, you discuss the idea of blended learning; what does this teaching model look like?
At its simplest, blended learning is a custom approach that mixes a variety of content delivery and student response options to get the best fit for the student or for the class. We are working towards a new learning model as we develop new materials that incorporate more web-based tools and resources.
How do you see social media impacting students in the 21st century? How does it impact teachers and where do you see the intersection?
Marshall McLuhan created the slogan “Reach out and touch someone” for the Bell system in 1979. I think he’d be delighted by the way technology has so shaped our lives in the nearly 30 years since his death. Clearly many students are wrapped up in a web of connections – whether it’s as simple as passing notes by texting each other or participating in Facebook or Second Life.
I can find a bit of software, get into trouble trying to make it work, e-mail out a request for help and then get back a response – I find that totally amazing. I am so used to waiting for hours on the phone or weeks for a service person to come to the house or even in line at the bank or at the market – this online world of people who want to connect, to help, to dialogue, and to learn form each other is a delight.
How does Freepath fit into your classroom?
Freepath is capable of helping us address a number of challenges, such as: how to easily combine different kinds of resources in one lesson; how to provide instruction that provides for different learning styles, multiple intelligences, and varying abilities; how to work around the limited bandwidth in our school; and how to maximize student on-task time in our individualized setting.
A unit built in Freepath can truly get us away from traditional learning center content packages – duotangs with fading photocopied text material and lists of questions or written assignments. Once we have loaded a playlist with the relevant text pages, idea diagrams, Powerpoints, pod- or vid-casts, other multimedia materials, and response form templates, we can let the students loose.
To view more of what Sue and Debra are up to check out the Small changes; Big Returns blog and their workshop lens in Squidoo.
Follow this link to find out more about the Innovative Learning Conference and join Sue and Debra to learn how to make small changes and get big returns!
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