… That a college professor in a Doctoral program understands the power of the Internet and requires its use for class assignments. I have finally met that professor. In my current class (The Role of the Superintendent), Dr. Tim Kanold is requiring all of us to complete our assignments online. Each of the 16 students in the class has created a new blog on Blogger, and we are required to post our “homework” on our blog. In addition, we each have a blog buddy for which we must write comments to their posts.
In the five classes I have taken so far, this is the first time the teacher has even acknowledged that the internet is an appropriate place to complete assignments. Well, it’s about time.
Not only is this professor requiring blogging for assignments, he also is a blogger and he is on Twitter (tkanold). On his Turning Vision Into Action blog he provides wonderful thoughts about Professional Learning Communities. This is a topic Dr. Kanold should know a lot about because he was trained under the PLC guru Rick DuFour. Kanold served as the director of math and science under DuFour at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Then, after DuFour’s departure, Kanold took over the reigns as superintendent.
So, I am excited to finally be in a class where I do not need a printer! But, more importantly, I love the idea that we are using the Read/Write web to interact with each other outside of the classroom. This is a concept that is long in coming to post-graduate classes, and I hope other professors in my program take note of this, and get on board. The time has come for 21st Century instruction to take hold at the graduate level as well as in K-12 schools.
The Principal and Interest 