Beyond our four walls

   

    Taking from the example in class about face calling an author (or someone of another country), as well as the inspirational ideas from a book called, The Freedom Writer's Diary, I am excited to redefine my classroom through a "beyond our four walls" approach to teaching texts.
I want to use face-to-face calling applications on student chrome books (as they are available, like Skype), to help my students interact with people they normally would never be able to. I don't just want students to meet authors, because local authors exist and could be met, but I want to help students connect with individuals who they literally could not meet unless they scheduled a road trip/flight.
    Through this goal, I will also strive to help students navigate for themselves the different online resources that they could utilize to be the ones themselves who reach out to others. In this way, I am using the idea of connectivism to teach my content in a way that pairs students with resources, while asking them to explore and actually engage those resources. This lesson would be a redefinition lesson because the technology eliminates the financial costs of field trips, the costs of flying speakers in, and the time it would require to reach authors or persons of interest through any other form (whether written or technological). There simply is a level of connection that cannot be reached without face-to-face applications on technological devices.
 
I don't know all the resources available by which to connect students, I can help them discover the pathways through research opportunities, such as genius hour. In fact, what better way for students to have a personal say in who we talk to than giving them the freedom to explore and find those connections?