Photo credit: Barrett.Discovery on Flickr

In Cur­ricu­lum 21: Essen­tial Edu­ca­tion for a Chang­ing World, Alan Novem­ber describes what he calls “dig­i­tal farms” as a way of chang­ing the cul­ture of teach­ing and learn­ing.  He begins by writ­ing about how prior to the indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion chil­dren were respon­si­ble for mean­ing­ful jobs that were impor­tant to the suc­cess of their fam­ily.  These chil­dren later went on to become pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens within their com­mu­nity as adults.  Novem­ber goes on to describe how for many chil­dren there is now a real loss of work and con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­nity.  The heart of his chap­ter out­lines six jobs that give stu­dents the oppor­tu­ni­ties to make valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to their learn­ing com­mu­nity.  Those jobs include:

• Tuto­r­ial Designers-Students record them­selves solv­ing prob­lems using tools such as Cam­ta­sia or Jing.  I also really like Screenr!
• Offi­cial Scribes-Students build class notes using a col­lab­o­ra­tive writ­ing tool such as a blog, wiki, or Google Docs.
• Researchers-One or two stu­dents each day act as the offi­cial researcher and answer class ques­tions using a com­puter (A one-to-one class­room could cer­tainly change the dynam­ics of this job.).
• Col­lab­o­ra­tion Coordinators-Students are respon­si­ble for find­ing and orga­niz­ing vir­tual meet­ings with out­side experts or oth­ers from around the world.  Meet­ings could occur on Skype or another video conferencing tool.
• Con­trib­u­tors to Society-Encourages indi­vid­u­als to be more socially respon­si­ble and aware using sites such as kiva.org.
• Cur­ricu­lum Reviewers-Students cre­ate mate­r­ial for con­tin­u­ous review com­bin­ing visual and audio com­po­nents that can be posted online.  Click here to check out an example!