When our district public relations committee created the architecture for this year's Laconia School District Education Fair, finding a theme to suggest for Woodland Heights School was no difficult affair. It was determined in short order that our theme would be '21st Century Learning, Each and Every Day'.
Since the announcement was made, our students and staff have been excitedly making arrangements for their opportuunity to showcase the products of our technology in education initiative this year. Every WHS classroom, department and program will have information to share, student work to show and demonstrations to make in order to share with our guests some of what we have been working on this year. We are proud to share our accomplishments, and we hope that you will be pleased and impressed.
One interesting example of how this project has unfolded, and right in step with 21st Century Learning, our 5th Graders formed a cooperative work group and have been brainstorming, organizing, and preparing their pod's EdFair displays and demonstrations. Other examples of 21st Century Learning in Pod 5 were also readily observed last week; students could be seen around the school mapping out video 'shoots', and in the Commons uploading and editing their work. They were recording audio commentary on their netbooks to accompany a recent Social Studies civics project. Providing a global education aspect, our 5th Graders conducted online research on the recent tragedies in Japan and then organized and publicized a school-based relief effort. Some of this experiential learning has been recorded by the students on their class blog, which is linked from their class wiki. All of this is representative of just one grade level, and just some of the projects and examples of 21st Century Learning that I noticed in Pod 5 over the past week.
Elsewhere around the building, students are alerting their teachers at every turn that "We can show this to our parents at EdFair!" Their enthusiasm for learning beyond the textbook, workbook and basal is unbridled, and has been hugely satisfying to watch take root and grow here at Woodland. Our growth process has been 'organic' and student-centered, unfolding at a natural pace in response to increasing student capabilities in all the diverse ways that learning can take form in a modern, technology-infused, opportunity-enriched, and student-centered elementary school.
Technology and learning go hand in hand here at Woodland Heights School, and as the teachers and students will tell you at EdFair, there is no turning back now. Once students and teachers have experienced 21st Century Learning with 21st Century Learning Tools, they can't imagine living and learning any other way. Our learning process is absolutely an appropriate and natural result of 'moving with the times' to best prepare our students for success in the world in which they currently live, and to prepare them for success in the world that they will soon inherit. Any other approach would be unethical, and a breach of our professional responsibility to provide a meaningful education for our students.
Laconia 'EdFair - 2011' should be a great night at Woodland Heights School. Please join us at 5:30pm. on Thursday, March 31st, for an hour of wonder and marvel as our students show you what is special about their school and how they learn. WHS is a very special school community, and we are not afraid to tell you about it. As we have grown accustomed to saying: "We are Woodland Heights, ... and this is what we do."
