Jamie McKenzie and Collaboration

As I learned about the leaders in the field, Jamie McKenzie is a leader that stood out to me as one whose ideas have influenced my work as a classroom teacher.  He is a consultant for inquiry-based teaching and technology integration.  He helped to define the 21^st century learner, including how they learn and what they need.   The main premise of his teaching is that technology should be incorporated in the classroom but should not be the focus.  The focus should be on student learning and character development.  This has impacted my classroom teaching in that I have focused on helping students to develop 21^st century skills by creating a student-centered classroom.  I have created several inquiry-based lessons in which students are asked to collaborate, problem solve and think critically in order to demonstrate new understanding, such as a webquest about the Progressive Era, after which the students work to identify a problem in the world today and to develop a plan to solve that problem.  These types of activities help students to learn at a deeper level and transfer ideas learned in class beyond the walls of the classroom.

The Horizon 2011 report itself stated that “Digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking,” and that is an idea with which Jamie McKenzie would agree. One trend that Jamie McKenzie has influenced is “Collaborative Environments” from 2010.  The focus of this trend is essentially all technology tools that support collaborative work in the classroom. This is an important aspect of inquiry-based learning and the 21^st century learner, as discussed by McKenzie. McKenzie worked to use technology in the classroom to enhance the learning environment and allow students the freedom to have more ownership over their learning, and collaboration is a major part of this.   This is also a trend that I use often in my classroom, from turning and discussing with a partner to working on a group project in Google docs to sharing learning through a blog. Being able to work collaboratively is an important trait that employers look for, so I think that this trend will only continue to increase in education.  Students will problem solve together, learn together, and share together, and technology will be able to support that work in new ways.  The trend of 1:1 computing devices further allows students to collaborate and extends the boundaries of this collaboration to outside of class as well.  Students will continue to have new ways to connect to each other and share ideas seamlessly throughout their day.  I look forward to continuing to find new tools to help my students collaborate in my classroom.

Thanks to Catherine Chacon for her original posting on Jamie McKenzie!

 Another leader in the field is Neil Postman.  To learn a bit more about him, watch this short video: