Big Shift 1: Open Content

This shift focuses on the fact that students can gain access to a wealth of information outside the standard classroom textbook.  Information can be found anywhere on the web from google to wikipedia and this is causing teachers and open-source-type classrooms  to create their own textbooks and curriculum.  Although I do not create my own textbooks or curriculum, I use a vast amount of outside resources in everyday teaching from search engines to discovery education to having kids research on their own in the computer lab.  This open shift allows for more of an independent ownership of work that the child is creating and learning.  This also promotes self teaching rather than a dictating/drilling type learning with multiple sharing opportunities where kids teach kids instead of the teacher always teaching the kids.  These technologies are what allow teachers to expand and bring the real world to the classroom without every leaving the school.  Many times what the students experience with these technologies in the classroom are the only times that they are able to have this exposure.  Every child deserves the opportunity to see what is out there in order to create a goal for what to strive for when they are in the real world living and using these technologies that are being open to them in any level classroom.