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21st Century Literacy: A report from NCTE

Webonauts Internet Academy is a web original game from PBS Kids that gives kids 8-10 years-old an opportunity to have some fun while exploring what it means to be a citizen in a web-infused‚ information-rich world. It is an engaging experience on its own but becomes all the more powerful when parents and teachers use game play as a springboard for conversations about media literacy and citizenship in the 21st Century. Very nicely done and a great starting point. From Adam Bellow on EduTech

Webonauts Internet Academy is a web original game from PBS Kids that gives kids 8-10 years-old an opportunity to have some fun while exploring what it means to be a citizen in a web-infused‚ information-rich world. It is an engaging experience on its own but becomes all the more powerful when parents and teachers use game play as a springboard for conversations about media literacy and citizenship in the 21st Century. Very nicely done and a great starting point. From Adam Bellow of EduTech

Social Media Classroom Open Source Howard Rheingold 21st Century Literacies

We make these changes not because we want to include technology but because we understand that there are new skills, new literacies kids need and we can't explore those literacies with students without harnessing the ingenuity technology affords us. (Also note Simpsons 3D metaphor)

For parents who want fun things for their students to do over the summer that will help students learn more and move forward in math and literacy skills - this is a website to check out. "Students enter the tournament by going to www.DimensionU.com/SummerChallenge. Once registered (parental permission is required) they will compete in math- and literacy-based games for a chance to win gift cards and summer-related prizes like inline skates, inflatable pools, beach volleyball sets, or tents. Five lucky players will be randomly selected to win an iPod Nano each. New this year is a social networking component that encourages students to build online "learning communities" of friends, family, community members, or even teachers - basically anyone who wants to help support the child's academic efforts during the summer. Participants who earn the highest number of social network points in each tournament round will win prizes separate from those awarded for game play performance."

Suggest this to parents.

This site is for the development and improvement in technology implementation. It provides a wide range of resources including framework, state initiatives, events, etc.

We combine performance evaluation with a series mastery quizzes to lock in the essential concepts delivered by the tutorials. As an educator you'll have access to performance evaluation and mastery quiz data. You'll have an online record of each student's performance that can be downloaded for data analysis.

And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct route into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.

while it is necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct root into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.\n\nWhen you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming. People who study, and learn, that 2+2=4, know that 2+2=4, not because they understand the theory of mathematics, not because they have read Hilbert and understand formalism, or can refute Brouwer and reject intuitionism, but because they know (full stop) 2+2=4.\n\nI used the phrase "it's direct programming" deliberately. This is an analogy we can wrap our minds around. We can think of direct instruction as being similar to direct programming. It is, effectively, a mechanism of putting content into a learner's mind as effectively and efficiently as possible, so that when the time comes later (as it will) that the learner needs to use that fact, it is instantly and easily accessible.

a general overview of Web 2.0 tools, is not going to lead to success in the classroom or with administration.

I'm going to find them this week apparently in Toys R Us or KMart $29 Australian. A type of Scrabble using robot tech.