So glad to see that Jamie McKenzie is offering three sessions at NECC. It’s been way too long since my last visit to fno.org. His opening session is on synergy and collaboration.

Synthesis – Do we actually teach it? Have we been taught how to synthesize ? Yet we expect students to be able to synthesize – http://questioning.org/sum08/bettering.html. Check out De Bono’s Thinking Hats for way of introducing “sideways explorations.” We need to equip students with creative thinking tools, such as thinking Box, Visual Thesaurus, and Scamper.

We’re on to Wikipedia, checking out the entry for educational technology – which is written in “legalize” terms. Jamie’s jumped in to do some re-writing. How often do we encourage our students to do re-writes in Wikipedia. (IP addresses in my district are blocked from editing in Wikipedia due to students posting inappropriate information regarding their middle school.) Ask students to check articles for currency.

Handout for session available at http://fno.org/sum08/synergy.html.