What does 21st century learning look like to you? That is a question you should be able to answer. If you do not have an image of this, then you need to research and develop a vision that you can believe in. We are no longer preparing students for knowledge based jobs. Our students need to be creative, flexible, citizens with the ability to utilize technology. They must be able to collaborate with those they work with and those across the nation or the world. Watching my son Ryan who
is only seven navigate the computer is an amazing thing. This
evening he was using the flip video to record movies that
he was creating with his legos. I remind you he is seven and
he is zooming in and out, editing the different videos and saving them
to a CD. He plans to merge them together with help from dad. He needs to have the ability to create in school.
If you want your students engaged and excited, let them create.
Our students need to see that the curriculum they are experiencing is relevant. They must have the ability to utilize technology. They must understand how they connect to our community and the world. They must gain the ability to analyze data and develop plans to improve it.
I want you to think about how these things are reflected in what I am asking you to do. Collaborate on Moodle, use the technology in your classrooms, connect your lessons to your students lives, reflect and use data to improve instruction. For many of you this is challenging, but we cannot stop the momentum we have gained. It is our responsibility to provide our students with these opportunities and we ourselves must model these skills. I know this can be scary for many of you but I ask you to step outside of your comfort zone to give our students what they need. Remember an amateur built an arc that survived the great flood and the best engineers in the world built the Titanic, which did not survive its first voyage. You do not need to be an expert, but you do need to take the first step. OUR STUDENTS DESERVE IT.
Having worked in technology for so long, I see changes in me as to how I use it. In 1994 when I received my masters in Instructional Technology, I was over the top with all the whistles and buttons that it could do. But through time, I realized that many of the whistles and buttons don't change the processes of learning. They just make it look better. Take PowerPoint for example. PowerPoint in its essence is a glorified dry erase board. It can look really great and exciting, but if you take away the "wow" factor, you are still left with facts. Kids still need to learn facts, and the process is the same. It's just taught in a different way. PowerPoint can also be used in an ineffective way when a teacher/student uses it to just reiterate what is written on the screen. It needs to be taught to enhance learning, not just to regurgitate what is presented. Use bullets/video clips/images to enhance it - keep the facts simple. That's using it instructionally, and it needs to be taught in that fashion. Another example is flip charts in Promethean. Having kids come to the board and move text/images around to categorize/fill in the blank, etc., is really no different than cutting and pasting on paper. It's just cooler on the board - but the process is still the same. It's taking basic facts at the knowledge level - it takes that extra effort to go to analysis and synthesis on Bloom's taxonomy (even with technology).
ReplyDeleteWell said.
ReplyDelete