Years ago in a former district I remember planning a staff development day where we had identified 6 categories or tracks to plan for; Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Technology and Special Areas. As we worked toward an agenda with lead teachers of those subject areas and the Curriculum Director, in my role of Instructional Technology Coordinator, I also attended these planning meetings. This particular time I sat quietly listening to all that they were saying. After about 45 minutes of listening to ideas they asked what my thoughts were (now this is going back at least 6 years ~ 2002) and I said "I'm sad to see that we have technology as it's own strand instead of embedded into each of the other strands."
The room was quiet and no one knew quiet what to say...they couldn't really conceptualize that even though our teachers had laptops for 4 years already...
Fast forward to today...I am following "spillarke's" comments on twitter about the keynote that she is listening to by Marc Prensky at the National Conference of English Teachers (NCTE)...when you google NCTE...you can find their ning...http://ncte2008.ning.com/ with the heading of...NCTE Annual Conference, Because Shift Happens, Teaching in the 21st Century. We are getting there!
Showing posts with label 21st century. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 21st century. Show all posts
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Self-Engagement at 8 Years Old
This morning I watched my 8 year old son show his morning sitter how to enter the world of Alice. Being a retired teacher, she was amazed at what he was doing.
He and I had dabbled in this 3D programming world when he had said to me, mom, I want to create a web-page...like Webkins....you can teach me that, right? Well, how could I say no?
I downloaded Alice and went through the tutorial on my own and then showed it to him. He learned how to load a world and start to manipulate objects in that world.
We need to find ways to harness this self-engagement for the 21st Century Learner so that all of our learners get this excited about learning on their own.
He and I had dabbled in this 3D programming world when he had said to me, mom, I want to create a web-page...like Webkins....you can teach me that, right? Well, how could I say no?
I downloaded Alice and went through the tutorial on my own and then showed it to him. He learned how to load a world and start to manipulate objects in that world.
We need to find ways to harness this self-engagement for the 21st Century Learner so that all of our learners get this excited about learning on their own.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Listening, Conversing, Discussing and Debating...Which one are you doing??
I just read an interesting quote from David Warlick's latest post (1/31/08) "Unconference is anarchy in practice. He says that everyone was blogging and podcasting, but no one was listening." He was listening to Andrew Keen on Digital Narcissism.
While I know digital natives are touted to be able to multi-task much better than the digital immigrants, I am wondering who is really listening when they are multi-tasking?? I ask this because if they are really listening, they will begin to more deeply discuss topics and involve others, but is this really going on in our blogs and podcasts today?
Educators are beginning to have conversations about technology and changing teaching and learning. I think conversations are a start it must go beyond that. We must then move forward both with our colleagues that we agree with AND those that we disagree with in our systems to move conversations to discussions and discussions to debates so that the "real" issues get to the table and are recognized. While it may seem like semantics, conversations are informal and begin most often between like-thinking colleagues, which won't cause an irritation in the system (Wheatley, 2001).
Discussions (which imply the taking of action to exchange ideas) can begin to do that but must be followed up with debates (formal, public discussion of ideas and opposing viewpoints). If we don't do move to these higher levels of conversing and listening, I'm not sure that we will ever move beyond the conversation to fundamentally change educational systems and create what we are all conversing about...an educational revolution that embraces 21st Century teaching and learning.
While I know digital natives are touted to be able to multi-task much better than the digital immigrants, I am wondering who is really listening when they are multi-tasking?? I ask this because if they are really listening, they will begin to more deeply discuss topics and involve others, but is this really going on in our blogs and podcasts today?
Educators are beginning to have conversations about technology and changing teaching and learning. I think conversations are a start it must go beyond that. We must then move forward both with our colleagues that we agree with AND those that we disagree with in our systems to move conversations to discussions and discussions to debates so that the "real" issues get to the table and are recognized. While it may seem like semantics, conversations are informal and begin most often between like-thinking colleagues, which won't cause an irritation in the system (Wheatley, 2001).
Discussions (which imply the taking of action to exchange ideas) can begin to do that but must be followed up with debates (formal, public discussion of ideas and opposing viewpoints). If we don't do move to these higher levels of conversing and listening, I'm not sure that we will ever move beyond the conversation to fundamentally change educational systems and create what we are all conversing about...an educational revolution that embraces 21st Century teaching and learning.
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