Education for the 21st Century

As a future teacher, I need to be aware of my 21st century learners. I must enhance learning by incorporating technology as often as possible. In order to reach my learns I must be adaptable, become a visionary, work collaboratively, take risks, possess a desire to learn more, become a strong communicator, and most importantly become a leader. By perfecting all of these characteristics, I will create a classroom where a deeper understanding takes place. Students will want to learn more. I will reach kinesthetic learners, visual learners, and audio learns.

I need to understand that my 21st century learners are collaborative, networkers, and communicators. These learners are adaptive and creative. They are all technology savvy and rely on media. My students desire instant gratification. They are digital natives.

In order to facilitate learning of the 21st century I must have resources; Smartboards, I-Pads, educationally focused software, cameras, microphones, and media production facilities. I must enhance the skills of my students by understanding the need and importance of technology integration. My students need to move out of remembering, understanding and applying and move into analyzing, evaluating and creating. The use of technology will help my students do that. Finally, I must integrate technology and the use of into all areas of my curriculum. I need to always ask myself if the curriculum is suited for a 21st century learner. I must teach my students for jobs that do not exist yet.

I will do all that I can to become educating and skilled in using technology within my classroom. I want my students to feel confident creating videos, using web-based applications and researching information. My students are 21st century learners, and I need to become a 21st century teacher.

Digital Natives

This article was very interesting. Part one discussed the two types of digital users; digital immigrants and digital natives. Digital immigrants are those of the baby boomer generations; those who did not grow up with the technology that we have today. The teachers who are digital immigrants find it difficult to teach to the digital natives for the immigrants speak in a different language than that of the natives. Digital Natives are those who grew up with technology surrounding their everyday existence. These students find school boring due to the intensity and fast-speed of the technology era. However, the digital immigrant natives need to some how fuse digital technology into the classroom in order to reach the students. Using digital media will help engage students and will increase the students' desire to learn.

Part 2 of the article explained how everything psychologist and neurobiologist believed about the brain is changing due to the explosion of technology. Particular areas of the brain find stimulation when a child engages in video games or technology. Researchers have now concluded that people of different cultures have a different way of thinking. This was not thought to be the case years ago. Social-pyschologists are trying to understand the brain pattern and structure of the digital natives. The article states that many social-psychologist believe that the structure of the digital natives is definitely different than that of the immigrants. Many educators find that students' attention spans are a lot shorten than that of 20 years ago. However, students' have the ability to sit in front of a computer game for hours, so what gives? Teachers need to infuse technology in the classroom, less lecture, less step-by-step and more multi-tasking into their curriculum to keep students engaged and wanting to learn more.

Overall, this article was very helpful to me as a future educator. I like the authors use of digital natives and immigrants because I find everything that the article said about the two completely true when comparing myself and my father. I want to create a classroom environment that is enriched with technology and I want all of my students to be engaged.

National Educational Technology Standards

For students and teachers, there is a set of standards in which both are expected to exhibit throughout the school year. Students are expected to demonstrate creative thinking skills and construct knowledge using technology. They are to use digital media to communicate effectively and collaborate with others. Students will learn to use digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information. They will use critical thinking skills when evaluating researched material using a digital medium. Students will become responsible digital users and finally, students will demonstrate an understanding of digital technology.

Teachers will demonstrate an understanding of technology concepts and operations. Teachers will use technology to create effective learning experiences for all students. They will use technology to maximize student learning. Teachers will apply technology to assess students understanding. They will use technology to enhance their professional practice. Teachers understand the social, ethical and human issues that surround the use of technology.

Overall, there is a set of standards for both teachers and students that are to be exhibited and mastered by both.

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling is an amazing way of developing stories told through digital media. The best stories are those that the audience can connect wit on an emotional level. Good storytelling is not about summarizing, it is about using raw, deep emotion to convey the main point behind the told story. There are six elements needed in order to create a great digital story. 1. Living Inside Your Story. This means that the author narrates the story using emotion as opposed to just summarizing the story. The narrator gives talks about first hand experiences. 2. Unfolding the Lessons Learned. The narrator is to express a lesson learned as the story unfolds. The lessons should be meaningful and touch the audience. Each digital story needs to either implicitly or explicitly state the lesson learned. 3. Developing Creative Tension. A good digital story creates tension or a problem at the beginning of the story and resolves the issue at the end of the story. 4. Economizing the Story Told. When creating a digital story, the creator is to make the point of the story using the shortest path possible. 5. Showing Not Telling. Images, sound and music can all be a part of the digital storytelling process. By utilizing these different types of media, the creator is able to express emotion in an entirely new way. 6. Developing Craftsmanship. A good digital story incorporates technology in a way that communicates a message with the viewer in an artistic way.

Overall, using digital storytelling is a way to communicate through technology, enhancing the viewer’s experience. When creating a digital story, the creator must connect with the audience in an emotional way that will really draw the viewer in and embrace the story being told.

Copyright 101 and Creative Commons

Copyright is a form of protection for original pieces of work. Copyright laws have two basic beliefs: 1. Anyone who creates an original, tangible work deserves to be compensated for that work 2. That person should be able to control how that work is used (Tompson 2005) It is especially important for educators to understand copyright laws, for example the fair use law and how to properly use other creators works in your classroom with our breaking the law. Fair use law states that work can be used or copied for educational purposes. (Thompson 2005) For example, copying an excerpt from a book that you want your class to analyze is an example of fair use law. If you were to copy an entire text book you want your class to use for the year, this would not be an example of fair use law because the company would be losing out on monetary gains. Overall, fair use was created to protect educators who wished to incorporate pieces of work into their classroom education.

Creative commons is a way for all people to share creative works with the major on the web for free. Creative commons provides a license for those who wish to share creative works on the web with the masses for free while still protecting their rights as the original creator. This means that the original creator will be protected if someone is to access the work for free on the Internet and then turns around to sell the piece in order to make money. Obtaining a creative commons license is free and suggested for musicians, artists and even educators.

FOCUS

My Thoughts on FOCUS

FOCUS is an acronym used to help creators of WebQuest site takes all the right steps when developing their first WebQuest. F stands for find quality sites. When providing resources for your students, it is the teacher's job to search sites that will provide the best and most interesting information for the student. The sites need to be engaging and educational at the same time. Searching deep into the web will allow you to find articles that will be beneficial for the students to analyze. O stands for orchestrate learners and resources. This means that to be willing to work around and with the resources you have. Plan your time wisely and incorporate other activities if only a few computers are available for use. Constructing groups and delegate different responsibilities to each student. C stands for challenge your learners. The whole idea behind WebQuest is to unlock higher order thinking skills. The information that we present should be asking the learner what he or she can do with the information as opposed to simply understanding the data. U stands for uses of medium. This simply means that as a teacher, be willing to explore and incorporate multiple mediums in your WebQuest. Videos, articles, documents and pictures are all useful tools that can help a student better solve the problem. Finally, S stands for scaffolding the experience. Scaffolding the experience for the student is a way to help guide the students thinking and understanding of the data. Providing templates, writing prompts or production ideas, will help the student understand how he or she can use the data to solve the problem.

Each of the steps stated above are extremely important and beneficial for a teacher to think about when creating WebQuest for classroom use. Thinking of all the important components of a WebQuest will allow the teacher to construct a meaningful educational experience for his or her students.

Web Quest

My Thoughts on WebQuest

WebQuest is an amazing resource for teachers who want to challenge and inspire his or her students. By utilizing WebQuest, a teacher can develop lessons that will enhance students' problem thinking and decision making skills. WebQuest is a tool that teachers can use to create lesson plans that will allow the student to analyze and evaluted data in order to construct a creative solution to a given problem. It is  a safe way for the students to use the World Wide Web, without the teacher constantly worrying about his or her students navigating the Web on their own.

WebQuest was first developed in 1995 at San Diego State University by Bernie Dodge and Tom March.(Yoder 1999) The two wanted to create lesson plans where the students could link to the web in order to research information on a given scenario or question. Typically, the students are given the particular scenario and are provided with the resources that the students must analyze and evaluate, in order to answer the question to the best of the students ability.

As a teacher, I have the ability of searching created WebQuests on a search engine such as Google. Also, I have the ability of creating my own WebQuest. This particular piece explains what is needed in order to create a WebQuest (typically a scenario or question the students must solve) as well as tips on how to find the best resources for your students to use in order to answer the question.

Personally, I think that this is an outstanding way to make learning exciting and engaging for the students. As I teacher, I would be able to construct the learning that is taking place in my classroom by selecting the resources I want my students to analyze in order to solve a problem and at the same time, I am allowing my students the freedom to explore and express his or her interpretation of the data. Using WebQuest moves student think from understanding to evaluation, the highest form of thinking. I would be able to challenge my students in a intriguing way and the thinking skills need to answer such questions would reach the top of Blooms Taxonomy. Along with promoting higher order thinking skills, using WebQuest in my classroom would allow me as a teacher to incorporate multiple disciplines in to one lesson. For example I could pose a question that delt with the Civil War. By using WebQuest, I would be able to incorporate reading, writing, art, technology, communication and civility all within one lesson! What more could you ask for as a teacher. I know that I want to learn more about WebQuest so that I can effectively use them in my classroom. I know that my students will truly benefit from WebQuests and so will I.