As middle school teachers and librarians integrate technology across the curriculum, challengers are presented in re-visualizing or reorganizing how content is delivered, reinforced and used by students and teachers. Dave Powers, math teacher at Wydown Middle School in Manchester, MO, is ready to push secondary math instruction into the School 2.0 era by actively trying to create a flat algebra classroom for the 2008-2009 school year.
Powers blogs at Do the Math where he explores "21st century teaching, 21st century learning, and 21st century math and science." In his recent post "Re-Organizing the Classes of School 2.0," Powers discusses a dilemma he faced in trying to create an online Algebra I text. It wasn't just a matter of how to organize the text, as in what came in what order on what page, but how to re-vision math instruction: "As I was brainstorming, I realized that this organization structure does not fit the new school 2.0 movement." The crux of his dilemma was finding free, quality algebra resources online. His proposal: to "universalize the organization of our school 2.0 content" with a flat-classroom-style project for algebra.
He has started a Flat Algebra I Classroom Textbook page (currently unavailable) and a Flat Algebra I Classroom Project wiki and discussions on his Classroom 2.0 page. The project is openly inspired by Vicki Davis' and Julie Lindsay's Flat Classroom Project. The unifying principle for The Flat Algebra I Classroom is that millions across the world are being taught or studying algebra at any moment which creates an incredible potential for collaboration and School 2.0 learning.
The initial steps are ongoing -- to recruit participating schools and teachers and then to create an idea for a project. The wiki page only started a month ago so only Powers' school is signed up right now. It will be exciting to track the progress of this project.
Is anyone else interested in flattening his or her algebra classroom? Would Powers be interested in collaborating with homeschoolers? I also wonder what Web 2.0 tools and technology Powers and his collaborators will use to bring their students and content together over the Web.
SOURCE: "Re-Organizing the Classes of School 2.0" 4/4/08
photo courtesy of .raindrops., used under this Creative Commons license
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