Judi Harris commented on my post Big Ideas about MOOs #2:

“One of the biggest factors working against MOO adoption/adaptation in K-12 is the extensive amount of time that students need to be allowed to work in the problem-solving environment to garner the requisite educational benefits. Many would argue (with LOGO, too, by the way) that the learning and engagement benefits justify the more open-ended approach and the much longer time-on-task, but that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s not anything that can be easily ?¢‚Ǩ?ìtallied?¢‚Ǩ? against a set of curriculum standards, unfortunately ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù though it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s probably true that a well-designed, curriculum-based MOO helps students to meet these standards.”

I try to be as pragmatic as possible with teachers: help them figure out ways that technology can enhance what they are doing. But I’m getting increasingly frustrated: we seem to have a collective sense that education could be much more engaging and exciting but can’t figure out how to assess it. I’ve been working with the instructional technology resource teachers in Virginia. During an afternoon session, they work in small groups on the modified webquest I created about creating project-based curriculum. In both groups that have used it, I’ve had at least one teacher tell me how hard it was for them to think “outside the standard.”

After almost a decade of standardized testing, teachers associate objectives with standards and begin their planning with a specific standard then find resource related to that standard. It seems to me that it makes for a very piece meal approach to learning. I think software like MOOs and project-based learning activites like webquests require teachers (and students, for that matter) to start with big questions and ideas. When I do the training, I show the video of Patty Vreeland from Newsome Park Elementary School from the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she talks about matching standards to project-based learning. (As an aside, after several years of using this video, I got to meet Parry Vreeland. She’s an ITRT now and was at VSTE. She is so lively and inspiring.)

As for a curriculum-based MOO, I was thinking that Lewis and Clark would be a great MOO: have students describe the different locations along the trail. They could add journal entries and anecdotes along with descriptions of the various characters like Sacagawea and the members of the exhibition. (A blog would be a perfect accompaniment: since we don’t have any written record from Sacagawea, it would be interesting to write it from her point of view.)

But then reality steps in: Lewis and Clark make up just one sub-standard of a larger standard related to United States expansion at least in Virginia’s Standards of Learning. There are 9 SOL related to history so with a nine-month school year that means we have to cover an SOL every month (20 days). (Actually less since the tests are given in May.) Since Lewis and Clark is one of four sub-standards, they would get about five days. No time to even think about a MOO since it would mean a lot of research and reading and creating.

Here’s the potentially revolutionary idea: You could divide the class into 9 groups and give them each one standard. They would each spend a month or two developing a MOO related to that standard. Then each group would have a chance to interact with the various MOOs over the course of the next few months.