C4T- Adventures in a gifted classroom- Bryan Jackson

This week I commented on two posts made my Bryan Jackson, a high school teacher from British Columbia, on his blog Adventures in a Gifted Classroom which can be found at http://bryanjack.edublogs.org/author/bryanjack/. The first post that I commented on was a music video that his class had made. It was a parody of "Don't Stop Believing" which they titled "Don't Stop Believing in Santa Claus". The video featured guitar, cello, drums, piano and two vocalists. I thought that the video was a fun way to let the class practice their musical talent while learning about technology. The students got the experience of recording and posting a video on youtube for the whole world to see, as well. I thought that this was a great activity for the students because it was a creative way to teach them about technology, practice musical skills and have fun all at the same time.
The second post I commented on was a post about changing the way that we run schools and classrooms. Some of the ideas that the post mentioned include going a week without using technology in the classroom, stopping the use of bells and time schedules, no longer using desks or chairs in the classroom, and no longer using textbooks or paper. Although I do not think that some of these ideas would work out in a real classroom setting, it was still interesting to think about ways that educators could try renovating our school system. As future educators, we need to start thinking about ways that we can change the status quo. We just might find some new classroom techniques that would benefit the students and make the learning environment in schools even better.
Overall I'm glad that I read Mr. Jackson's blog because it seems to me that he is an unconventional teacher who is willing to think outside the box and take some risks in the classroom. Some educators might be opposed to this. They may raise objections like "This new environment that Mr. Jackson is suggesting would be chaos" or "An idea like that sounds good in theory, but it would never work in a real classroom". I think a quote from Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is appropriate here. "Playing anything to roll the dice just one more time. Some will win. Some will lose." Let's take a chance and challenge what our current society thinks is the appropriate way to run a classroom. The truth is that we will never know what other possibilities there are to make schools better until we try. Who knows? We could totally change the way that American schools run forever. Not just for our own sake, but for the good of the students.
I revisited Mr. Jackson's blog this week and read his post which was entitled "Something for Myself This Week". In this post, Mr. Jackson reflects on his quest to integrate technology in his classroom. He compares this quest to a journey through a desert or a jungle. He also accompanied his post with a video of a trip that he recently took which adds to his metaphor. I enjoyed this post because sometimes I feel like trying to learn about new technology is a difficult quest, as well. However, Mr. Jackson leaves me with hope at the end of this post by stating that we are all part of a huge technological learning community. The posts that we make about our thoughts may be benefiting someone else and that makes the quest worthwhile.