Connecting to the World

This article highlighting teacher Shannon McClintock Miller was written to inform readers of the many cutting-edge teaching methods that Miller is using at Van Meter Community School in Iowa. Miller is the school's librarian and technology coordinator. She has used her experience and resources to develop new ideas for expanding learning not only outside of the classroom, but even outside of the state! Most impressive are her efforts to use Skype to allow students to communicate and collaborate with a variety of different people. Through Miller's Skype arrangements, students of all ages at Van Meter have been privileged with the opportunity to speak with peers in other states, and have even had guest speakers including authors, software designers, and other experts digitally come into their class! Miller also has a website that can be visited at https://sites.google.com/a/vmbulldogs.com/van-meter-secondary-library-voice/, and a blog that can be visited at http://vanmeterlibraryvoice.blogspot.com/. On her website, Miller has links to numerous resources including Web2.0 tools! On her blog, you can find student-made videos, Animoto videos detailing inter-state Skype sessions, links to activities like polling via Facebook, and lots of other great posts! Through these efforts and many more, Shannon Miller has changed and greatly improved the learning environment for her school and for a good number of other schools.

I really love the idea of connecting students to the world outside of the classroom! I have mentioned my desire to do so at other points throughout this semester, and think that using Skype is the perfect way to make it happen! Shannon Miller had two great ideas of allowing students to talk to other students who are out of state, and also giving students the opportunity to talk to professionals around the world. At this point in time, I do not know much about Skype but I am definitely interested in exploring it more, and wonder if there could be a way to combine the two ideas. It would be a really neat idea to have a three-way Skype session in which a professional could speak to classes in two different states, and everybody could interact with each other! For example, if I am teaching a series on ecosystems, I could arrange to have a scientist speak with my class, and also connect our session with a class in Colorado. This way, my Southern Californian students could bring something to the table with their knowledge of the ocean here, Colorado students could bring something to the table with their knowledge of the forests there, and the scientist could work with both classes to expand upon and clarify all of their ideas! This concept could also be beneficial to foreign language classes. Native English speakers learning Spanish could connect with Native Spanish speakers learning English, and a linguistics professional could moderate the session. Skype and other related programs have the ability to bring the world and all sorts of different people into the classroom!

Shannon Miller said it best herself: we as teachers want students "to be part of something bigger outside of the walls of their school and into the world. This is where every one of our students is going to make a difference" (Fingal, 2011, p. 1). Though we cannot always take our students out into the world, we can bring the world to them! Starting a blog, having a website, Skyping with professionals and other students; these are all fantastic ways to open up new doors to our students so that they may expand their education and life knowledge to resources outside of the classroom. This will help them both to hear others, and to be heard by others. So let's collaborate with the world around us to attain the richest and fullest education possible!

Miller's concepts connect students to each other, to peers in other states, and to professionals around the world. In doing so, they meet the NETS Standard #2: Communication and Collaboration.

Fingal, Diana. (2011, March/April). Member Profiles: Being the Change She Wants to See in the Schools. United States & Canada.