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Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Where are my attitudes several months later?
So, how do I feel about 21st century skills many months later. I sit today on the last day of a 4 day course on the interactive 21st century classroom. We've talked about software for an interactive whiteboard, Active Inspire, Google Docs and tools, online authoring tools such as Xtranormal, VoiceThread, and Glogster, and now Blogs and Wikis.
I continue to take professional development around the topic of the 21st century classroom because I want to make sure that I keep current with the trends in education right now. It moves so fast. However, I feel the students jump ahead with more "trendy" popular technology which is not necessarily the trend in education. So I am torn.
So what is important for us to teach? Should we teach to the reality of our students' lives or the things that are meaningful for them? Should we figure out how to incorporate Facebook into our classrooms - using SPS Social Media or Moodle - which they will see as not cool simply because it is in our curriculum.
What is the balance? How do we decide as educators how to make these decisions? Are we the "experts"?
My next steps will be taking some of the online authoring tools and providing alternative assignments for our typical responses. We'll see.
I continue to take professional development around the topic of the 21st century classroom because I want to make sure that I keep current with the trends in education right now. It moves so fast. However, I feel the students jump ahead with more "trendy" popular technology which is not necessarily the trend in education. So I am torn.
So what is important for us to teach? Should we teach to the reality of our students' lives or the things that are meaningful for them? Should we figure out how to incorporate Facebook into our classrooms - using SPS Social Media or Moodle - which they will see as not cool simply because it is in our curriculum.
What is the balance? How do we decide as educators how to make these decisions? Are we the "experts"?
My next steps will be taking some of the online authoring tools and providing alternative assignments for our typical responses. We'll see.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Twitter May Endure, but...
I think that my major hold back from Twitter is that I am not a net-worker. I don't do it well in person and I do it even worse online. I think that in order to use it well, you need to have a good handle on how to net-work effectively.
I do see the value of using Twitter to stay informed in the area of your profession. The trick to this is finding people or corporations or businesses or groups to follow that would add pertinent information and resources to your repertoire. This is where I get stuck. How do I find the people or groups or whoever who would have information and resources that I would be interested in professionally? I imagine I could start by searching for tags that relate to the topics I am interested in? I'm just not sure.
Where I don't have any interest in using Twitter for is a social networking site. I am a Facebook user and like the options of sharing photos and videos along with the "status" updates that people provide. I think where Twitter will endure is more for a professional networking solution.
I do see the value of using Twitter to stay informed in the area of your profession. The trick to this is finding people or corporations or businesses or groups to follow that would add pertinent information and resources to your repertoire. This is where I get stuck. How do I find the people or groups or whoever who would have information and resources that I would be interested in professionally? I imagine I could start by searching for tags that relate to the topics I am interested in? I'm just not sure.
Where I don't have any interest in using Twitter for is a social networking site. I am a Facebook user and like the options of sharing photos and videos along with the "status" updates that people provide. I think where Twitter will endure is more for a professional networking solution.
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