Welcome to our blog

This is the story of two educators on one journey. Each day we will record our reflections on the process of being involved in an innovative educational environment. The decision on our part to leave the public education system was deliberate due to our growing frustrations over the factory "one size fits all" model of education. This model has dominated the educational landscape and is not designed to meet the needs of the 21st century learner. Step one in our journey was to find a place that would allow us the freedom to break out of the system. We needed a chance to just breath and facilitate learning in the ways that we both know are best for children. That step has led us to Rosemary Beach Florida to work with the students attending the OH Institute. The OH Institute is a unique educational environment that we find humane. The curriculum focus is on the individual learner with an infusion of technology project based learning. Currently, it has 20 students in grades 4-11 all of whom are seeking something different than what the factory system of education has to offer. This is where our adventure begins...

Monday, November 29, 2010

Monday November 29th

Amy-

Wow! Today was a big day where a lot of things came together in a really nice way. PBL work came together with reading with technology etc. It was nice to watch the high school students get into the virtual chalk talk discussion. The product or document that the students produced was amazing. I love it when simple technology works to produce something extraordinary.

It was also very nice to get the positive reinforcement of students getting high quality responses from experts.

Today was the kind of day that I felt like we are on the right track with this model.

I also feel like a weight has been lifted off of my back after our meeting with Tim and Paige yesterday. I feel like we were given permission to continue to evolve and that roles should not necessarily be a defined thing. It makes me feel better to know that I have more control over my role and destiny than I was seeing before the Thanksgiving holidays.

All is well.

Randy:

Today was a good start to the next round of weeks after the break. It was neat to see high school put out such a great product with Amy in just one 90 minute block.

Elementary was actually way more difficult than I expected. The pandemic assignment was pretty advanced and really pushed them hard. I'm going to really think about how to make tomorrow a "guarantee success" day. The morning math was pretty fun also as we learned how to measure a tree using angles and our thumbs. Fun stuff.

Middle school is starting a round of projects that include an individual project and a group project to test out the new PeBLr program that Tim is writing. Tim is taking the lead on the individual projects and I will work on the group projects. I think Tim will see first hand how difficult, yet rewarding, project based learning can be.

Music was fun today as well. I'm tickled that the middle school is going to work on Ice Ice Baby as a song. For some reason, that really makes me smile. High school is also searching out new possible songs and we'll just have to see what they come up with.
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