In an earlier post I quoted the “Aha!” moment of one of the teachers that I work with.  She has put the computers at the point of learning and in her case this means on the desks where the student sit in her class.  This is a direct response to the kind argument that David Jakes makes in his slide show which I featured in a June post.  The feed back from Maureen is that this simple act of moving the computers from the isolation point of the wall at the back of the room to where the students sit has had an immediate and dramatic effect upon the students’ learning and engagement with the tasks set.  The images below demonstrate how this is working in Maureen’s class.  Maureen has now requested from me the e-learning planning templates that I have developed in order that she can better plan to integrate a wider spectrum of  meaningful e-learning interventions into her term 4 planning.  I for one can not wait to get back to her class to see how her students are flourishing under their new layout.

This is why I love what I do. The following quote is a direct copy of an e-mail sent to me today from a teacher whom I worked with yesterday.

After talking to you yesterday, this morning I have changed my desk configuration of each group of 4 students to have access to a computer at the end of their desks, AMAZING, students immediately started working collaboratively, sharing ideas and recording their ideas ( see our wiki- I wonder questions about the Christchurch earthquake). We then put this immediately onto wiki.
My management of the class has immediately changed, I know longer need timetables of when they will get their turn- as they manage that as a group, I am also thinking of more ways to use the computers in a collaborative way.
Thanks for the discussion always is refreshing and stimulating.

I describe myself as a change agent, I put ideas in front of talented and creative teachers.  I make the case for change, they interpret those ideas and act upon them. The subsequent actions of the teachers then stimulates children.  They start to engage at a different level, they think deeper, they find the work authentic and relevant.

In this particular case all a teacher has done is move the furniture, just like David Jakes illustrates in his presentation that I featured in an earlier post, suggests. You can see the results of this change on the class wiki and I am sure there will be more evidence as the days and weeks unfold. http://2010pvsrm04.wikispaces.com/Topic