Connecting the (Learning) Dots

We talk a lot about the importance of making connections. In fact, many people put "connect" as one of the "4 or 5 C's of learning in the 21st Century." When I think about connections, two ideas come to mind.

• human connections 
• connections we help students make that enable learning to be relevant and deep.

Sometimes I feel like the pieces of the puzzle are coming together in small and big ways as a connected culture becomes more the norm in our school.

Here is a small example:
In the MJGDS first grade, we have a brand new teacher and new assistant teacher. Their spark of excitement about what is possible have ignited a classroom open to the world in fun and transformative ways through the use of Skype. (If you are interested in specifics, the teacher, Pamela Lewis, has blogged almost every single day of her first year of teaching- an amazing accomplishment!)

On Monday of this week, they Skyped with the wonderful author and artist, Peter H. Reynolds (human connection). I was scheduled to be their "mystery reader" on Tuesday. Since I follow their blog and Twitter, I knew about their Skype, so I decided to read his book The North Star (learning connection). I also connected my learning to their learning by recalling an activity that I read about and found intriguing. I brought the iPads and offered them the opportunity to visualize and doodle the story, just as I had read about in the blog post. Had I not been a connected teacher, constantly learning from the sharing of others, I doubt I would have thought about doing this.

When the dots start connecting, it feels right.
See below for the Animoto video showing some of the doodles.