21st Century Educator

We need to stop talking cyberbullying and start talking cybercitizenship. Flip to the positive. Our focus in schools needs to shift towards responsible, positive use of social media. We need to stop ignoring and blocking and start embracing and amplifying. It is our duty to our students to start modeling responsible use of social media and encouraging them to follow our lead.

Otumoetai Intermediate School will pioneer a first in New Zealand education by allowing students to use cellphones as part of everyday learning. Students will be able to use phones to assist with projects, with the added ability to speak up if they see other students behaving inappropriately in the playground.

Part of an 18-unit curriculum developed by Renee Hobbs and integrating media literacy into common state standards in English, Social Studies, Math, and Health. Provided by Temple University's Media Education Lab.

Founded in 1995 as a concerned response to the ever-increasing deluge of messages youth receive from television, radio, film, print media, electronic games, and the Internet, Just Think teaches young people media literacy skills for the 21st century.

This post describes the two main benefits professors find when using Twitter in lecture.

Widely quoted paper (2006). Educators today confront an ever-shifting landscape when it comes to Internet technologies and their potential for expanding participatory cultures. Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explores new frameworks for literacy through the lens of participatory culture.

The modern American school faces rough challenges. Budget cuts have caused ballooning class sizes, many teachers struggle with poorly motivated students, and in many schools a war is being waged on distracting technologies. In response, innovative educators are embracing social media to fight back against the onslaught of problems. Technologies such as Twitter and Skype offer ideal solutions as inexpensive tools of team-based education.

The Common Sense Media policy agenda aims to empower parents, teachers and young people themselves to take control of the media and technology in their lives, in order to help keep kids learning, thriving, and safe.\n\n * Promoting Digital Literacy and Citizenship - Key to 21st Century Learning and Online Safety.\n * Addressing the Major Public Health Issues Related to Media\n * Improving Consumer Tools and Ratings to Empower Families to Make Smarter Choices\n

Schools should reflect the world we live in today. And we live in a social world. We need to teach students how to be effective collaborators in that world, how to interact with people around them, how to be engaged, informed twenty-first-century citizens.

Months before the newly hired teachers at Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy (SLA) started their jobs, they began the consuming work of creating the high school of their dreams -- without meeting face to face. They articulated a vision, planned curriculum, designed assessment rubrics, debated discipline policies, and even hammered out daily schedules using the sort of networking tools -- messaging, file swapping, idea sharing, and blogging

Part of a wider effort to use technology to extend learning beyond classroom walls and the six-hour school day. Internet buses may soon be hauling children to school in many other districts, particularly those with long bus routes. The company marketing the router, Autonet Mobile, says it has sold them to schools or districts in Florida, Missouri and Washington, D.C.

Blocking access to these tools in classrooms discourages student-centered learning, leading education technology consultant says

Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, New Image for Computing (NIC) is currently in the first stage of what is planned as a multi-phase project that aims to improve the image of computer science among high school students (with a special focus on gender and ethnic disparities) and encourage greater participation in computer science at the postsecondary level. Download the full report.

These "new" tools to encourage collaboration are simply updated versions of classic classroom activities.

Teachers are always trying to combat student apathy and University of Texas at Dallas History Professor, Monica Rankin, has found an interesting way to do it using Twitter in the classroom. Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class. Rankin then projects a giant image of live Tweets in the front of the class for discussion and suggests that students refer back to the messages later when studying.

What are the characteristics we would expect to see in a successful 21st century educator? Well, we know they are student-centric, holistic, and they're teaching about how to learn as much as teaching about the subject area. We know, too, that they must be 21st century learners as well.

Pinned to the wall of my daughter's grade one classroom is a sheet of butcher's paper, listing questions she and her classmates would like to answer.\n\nWill the water run out? How many children travel to school in a sustainable way? Are cities a good idea? The next sheet lists ways they will find out the answers. First on the list: check the internet. These six and seven-year-olds are part of the emerging generation Z . Demographers and social researchers have banged on endlessly about gen Y and their rapid embrace of new technology but gen Z is the first generation born into a digital world.

Running a successful 1-to-1 program requires diligent upkeep-- along with a few veteran tricks of the trade.