Are Independent Schools a Good Idea? & Backchannels During Presentations.

     Independent schools are where students can go during school, as a class, to learn and explore things in a different was than a traditional classroom, and without teachers. Personally, I think it's sort of a good idea, because it will inspire students to learn about things that interest them, in a non-boring way. Sometimes, the reasons students don't do well in school is because they don't care about what they are learning about, so they don't try as hard as some other people. It could also be beneficial because the kids who go there will learn what it's like to be out in the world on their own and learn things they need to know, not just boring random things that schools think you should know. Depending on what they want to do in life, the independent school could be a good idea.
     On another note, while watching the video about independent schools on youtube, the class was discussing things and saying what they thought on a Twitter backchannel. I think it was helpful in some ways, but it was also distracting. Being on Twitter made me focus more on that, and less on the video we were watching. But it was also very helpful to say what I thought about the idea of independent schools, and see other peoples opinions. After the video, it was slightly easier to start a discussion because people were responding to the video in realtime on the backchannel, so they already had some idea on what to talk about with the class. I think that the only problem with tweeting on a backchannel during a presentation or movie is that people get caught up with reading the tweets and tweeting about the video, that you don't really pay that much attention to it in the first place.