Thursday at Daraja (a post in the dawning)

In the morning immediately after waking, all those ideas I used to have escape me or nearly.

I want to know more about the Women's Integrity Strength and Hope program that is attended by the students once a week.  The curriculum differs from year to year.  What are the objectives?  What is the scope and sequence?  What curriculum map are they following?  I imagine tracking by Forms (1, 2, 3, 4), which correspond to US grades in high school (Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors), then semesters, objectives, lessons, instructional strategies, formative and summative assessments, and innovations, the last being what I would describe as opportunities to collaborate with other groups locally, nationally, and internationally (in person or through technological means).  After during that, I think it would be interesting to see how the lessons are more fully built upon one another, what backwards design is used, and how the teachers build towards a particular end goal.

I also wanted to demonstrate using Nearpod.  Last night, I had an idea that I might be able to run a test of a Nearpod demonstration with Matteo in the States.  The idea would be that, if it worked, using Nearpod, a great online network, and a computer with camera, a teacher here or in another country could lead teacher professional development or a class of students to learn collaboratively.  It still has the limitation of only allowing folk who are physically in the same space to directly collaborate, but it would allow one teacher to follow the development of different groups, uniting them in the learning process.  It would also allow that teacher to track the development of those students and share student contributions across groups with students in whatever place using the share function of Nearpod.  I've tested this in the US being in two different cities, but only to see that it could work.  I'm really interested in testing and actually trying it with teachers.  Could this lead to professional development opportunities in educational technology usage from the US that could continue despite barriers.  I have to try it first.  I also need to get to breakfast.

First things first.