Although this lecture by the futurists from Info Savvy Group is dated 2006 it is an essential and clearcut distillation of current issues for teachers of youth in the classroom. The Info Savvy website-CommittedSardine has plenty other free resources, I located this elsewhere as you can see.
http://www.committedsardine.com/handouts.cfm
Via @pcwoessner on Twitter. Great development of Digital Citizenship/Internet Safety resources. He has combined NETS-S, Ribble & Bailey's Digital Citizneship in Schools, iKeepSafe C3 Matrix, Microsoft's Digital Citizenship & Creative Content, and SimpleK12's Protecting Students in the 21st Century.
Collaboration is another major hallmark of the Net Generation. However, Tapscott said, we have a tendency to squander or prohibit this strength in schools and workplaces.
"What do we do with this collaboration-geared generation? We stick them in a cubicle, supervise them like they're Dilbert, and take away their tools (i.e., blocking sites like Facebook and Youtube)." Tapscott calls this creating a generational firewall. "It says, 'We don't get you, we don't understand your tools, and we don't trust you to use them.'"
We can’t just throw technology in a classroom and expect good things," notes Tapscott. We need to move away from an outdated, broadcast-style of pedagogy (i.e., lecture and drilling) toward student-focused, multimodal learning, where "the teacher's no longer in the transmission of data business; she's in the customizing-learning-experiences-for-students business."
To reshape pedagogy, Tapscott says that we must consider eight norms for the Net Generation: freedom, customization, scrutiny, integrity, collaboration, entertainment, speed, and innovation.
Better make people "addicted" to learning, to the process, to the autonomy of it. There are intrinsic reasons why this is pleasurable, meaningful and long lasting per se.
7) Mind the use of the word "enhance" when linked to learning. Mind the gap. Old things are just old things.
Note my comment: "This is such a good point! We do not advance from the early airplanes by sticking to using double winged biplanes or 'enhancing' the propeller engine. If a blog is used to 'enhance' the sharing of homework then the point of a blog is missed."
9) Standards are for things that fit a pattern. When educators claim that creativity is a "21st century" essential skill, we need to accept the limitations of striving for standards. Assessment and standards are cousins.
Communicating results is becoming more and more frequent.(#4) Doubting out loud doesn't seem to grant you an "expert" degree, which I notice is the aim of many educators who are blogging. Particularly those who write in Spanish.
The poster in the classroom... Interesting. I would change the phrase to "Remember your teacher also expects to learn lots from you".
Few teachers are comfortable doubting in front of their students. Perhaps, with reason ;-)
Wordle is a fun Web 2.0 tool to use with students. The most repeated word in a Wordle is the largest. Wordle also allows users to change the layout, colors, and font. NCTE provides some cool ideas for how to use it in the classroom.
I will be skyping into this free webinar hosted by Scholastic with David Rowe, Chief Scientist of Cognition and Learning at the Center for Applied Special Technology. Join us.
April 21, 2010 - 3:30 pm EDT - free!
I wonder what would denote a small or mid-size district. Obviously the number of enrolled students, but there's some flexibility there.
Freeman, who uses a blog to communicate with students and parents, points out that her own active use of technology in the 4,200-student district has helped create a norm for others to follow.
“You can no longer take on a professional development agenda without a technology component,” Kimball argues. “We know that professional learning communities are not effective without everything—from access to student data to the tools to analyze it.”
Freeman says. “We’re still trying to find ways to assess what we know we morally should. We know that students need to be competitive in a global environment.”
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."
But the body of research reveals that staff-development costs, including central-office and local staff, hours of teacher time, stipends, salary increases, substitutes, facilities, instructors, and material expenditures hover in the range of $8,000 to $16,000 per teacher, per year, especially in larger districts. Most districts have no idea they spend that much on staff development. Sadly though, most administrators agree their professional-development outlay has no correlation with student-achievement results.
Might help create a blended classroom, even when you have to share the blender. Common sense advise for the real world of underequipped classrooms and stretched thin teachers.