"Common Core has stuck a fork in this one. If teachers were clinging gamely to the hope that they could retire before being forced to add tech to their classrooms, they just lost that race. The new Common Core Standards mention 'technology in the classroom' and 'digital devices' at least twenty-seven times I counted as tools for accomplishing the goals of college and career. Technology is required for all the significant K-8 goals, including publishing, sharing, constructing knowledge, deep learning, close reading. Consider these (truncated for brevity):"
I got to see Brad do an amazing presentation at SXSWedu this year -- really blown away by his (and his students') sketchnotes, and the way that his TOK class builds a vast pool of knowledge with online tools is really a model that lots of folks should be following.
Henry Jenkins
"Play - the capacity to experiment with one's surroundings as a form of problem-solving
Performance - the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
Simulation - the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
Appropriation - the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content Multitasking - the ability to scan one's environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
Distributed Cognition - the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
Collective Intelligence - the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
Judgment - the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources Transmedia Navigation - the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
Networking - the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information Negotiation - the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms."
"At Challenge Success, we believe that our society has become too focused on grades, test scores, and performance, leaving little time for kids to develop the necessary skills to become resilient, ethical, and motivated learners. We provide families and schools with the practical, research-based tools they need to create a more balanced and academically fulfilling life for kids. After all, success is measured over the course of a lifetime, not at the end of a semester.
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