On Monday I had the honor of getting to spend some time at the New Tech East High School in Cleveland, Ohio. They’re a program that follows the New Tech High School model of blended learning. Basically, they emphasize 1-to-1 computing in a f2f environment combined with fully project-based learning.

The course I was visiting in the image above was a Geo-CAD course where students were learning digital media as well as geometry. This student was explaining to me that he was creating a maze using Geo-CAD. His maze had to emphasize clean design as well as several misleading routes. In a history course that I visited, students were creating a movie about life for a family during the Great Depression. Each group of students had a different context for their family. The ones I watched work were trying to find a farm truck that would be appropriate for a family living in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. It was fascinating to watch their reasoning as they searched through pictures on Google Images and discarded any that would not have fit the time period.

While I loved seeing all the students using computers as an integral part of what they do every day, some of my greatest learnings were around the potential for project-based learning.

Read more at: http://educationfrontier.org/?p=166#comment-94