while that isn't meant in the literal sense, it is definitely true in a virtual way. my job, that is. or the way that i look at my 'job.' honestly, it can hardly be even called that, since i have so much fun at it every day, each session of my classes, through thick and thin, the ebb times and the flow.

and it seems they are having fun too. even the TAs, for whom this work and play at Tolman Microcomputer Facility IS a job.

it's 4:15 now, and students are engaged in the stuff they usually do during 'free period.' why didn't i think of this before? well, in a way, in past summers, the whole session was one huge free period. but intentionally structuring it this way frees me up to see and feel the bigger picture that's happening around me, every single day. it allows me to breathe, and needless to say, gives the kids a complete sense of freedom and play. and i've always known that, wrapped in that play are the seeds of learning and knowing, which they will take with them, perhaps to plant elsewhere, perhaps to take to other worlds. their worlds of home and school, and work.

i can only hope. but i can also try my hand at managing this cyberworld, in as good a way as i can, learning as i go along. along the lines of this thought, i reprise here a quote i emblazoned on the home page of last summer's Advanced IC:

Digital media and Internet communications will transform learning practices from the sequential classroom curriculum to nonlinear hyperlearning environments. A new kind of teacher will emerge--the teacher who is a course manager and a coach rather than an information transmitter.

so there you have it. for the most part this summer, in both classes, i'm a kind of 'manager.' it's not so bad, as characterizations go. but i have more to say about this, more to say about extending the idea and making the image more... human. more friendly. less semantically bureaucratic. but it's 4:24. almost time to wrap up today. more later...

wow. where does the time go...? it's already 11:30, and i'm getting to the end of my daily allotment of energy. anyway, i like the part in the quote above about 'nonlinear hyperlearning environments,' which is exactly what TIC and AIC are. and i do prefer to see my role in this environment as a 'coach,' rather than a traditional teacher.

i'm convinced that 'hyperlearning' takes place when a significant element of fun is injected into the proceedings. and this 'fun' takes various forms... in a computer lab, it isn't just games or gaming, it's the whole dynamic of being challenged in a way that's not stressful, a dynamic of play that creeps into learning technical stuff. and along with the fun element, always the intentionality of asking questions such that kids see the bigger picture; that they see the parts that make up the whole, as well as the whole within which the parts exist.

in a class such as TIC and AIC, that isn't so hard to achieve at all. it seems to just organically happen. sure, one can say that it's a logical result of a few summers' experience, as well as careful planning and organizing. but it really requires a synergy, a magic almost, that can happen only with the right alignment of stars. and i'm not talking about the ones up in the firmament of the heavens. i'm referring to the people IN the classes themselves... the TAs, the mentors, the instructors, the guest experts and last but not least, the students themselves.

when this 'alignment' is just right, when the chemistry leads to a synergistic flow, it's downright magical. all classrooms should be that way.

{ net.casting }
^