You Can Learn Anything You Want to Learn!

Khan Academy is one of many tools that
students will use this year.

"Yes," I'll say to students, "You can learn anything you want to learn in this day of the Internet and information everywhere."

I'll then tell the quick story of how I was a curious child with regular school year access to a very small school library. I also visited the public library once in a while and the bookmobile came to my neighborhood during the summer. Television had about ten channels and there was radio access too. Our family had newspaper and National Geographic subscriptions and we often read the news, captions, and articles and looked at the photographs. That information access is minuscule compared to what's available with a keystroke today. Today, almost anything you want to know can be found on the Internet.

Then, I'll say that there are many ways to use that information to learn well, and today we're going to practice that using Khan Academy. After that I'll model what a student might do to learn well with Khan Academy including:

• Finding the site
• Choosing the topic you want to learn about
• Having paper, pencil, and headphones ready
• Listening, taking notes, pausing and reviewing when needed, and taking the tests

After that I'll give students some time to practice. As they practice I'll walk around and match their online names to their real names.

At the end, as their coach, I'll show them the ways that I can see what they've done online and how that is organized and reported.

Throughout the year, I'll continue to give students lots of opportunities to learn to learn using multiple online and offline tools.