Issues and Trends

Here are some major characteristics/ suggestions for a 21st century teacher, which all teachers should strive to be, some of the points could start an interesting conversation

This is one of the best lists I have seen for 21st-century teaching! I think that this article could be used in any classroom as ways for teachers to transform their practice. Some of the ideals I think are a little hard to achieve... for example, going completely paperless would be difficult, particularly in the early years when students need to learn handwriting. But this is a great resource for teachers, regardless, to get ideas on how to challenge themselves and adapt their teaching to the needs of their learners in today's age. I am not aware of any other list that is as comprehensive as the one you shared; I like this list!

This is a great article, I have many articles from Edutopia bookmarked as well. Any teacher could learn from this list of characteristics and suggestions. Although I do not think that as a future teacher I would be able to follow all of these I believe many are possible.

Gaming in the classroom

I thought that this was an interesting article when it came to evaluating teachers and the difference between teacher who use gaming in the classroom and those who don't I think however it would have been more interesting to hear more about the experiences of the "Barrier Busters" and the "Naturals" . I definitely appreciated the point that was made about how for Naturals gaming is not considered as some innovation and instead as a teaching tool. What would be the significance of having the number of years the teacher has been teaching?

EdRedi software that allows teachers to track the students use on name brand devices.

Defines some parts to instructional practices

When using technology in the classroom, it is important to understand how to use it.

This resource shows a couple of different social media resources that teachers are using in the classroom. 

I really enjoyed the fact that this website gave several examples of how teachers have implemented technology and 21st century skills in their classrooms. Then gave a couple of examples of other social media avenues that teachers can implement. One thing that I think would be helpful is connecting teachers with PLNs on twitter or other places that would help them see how people in their field are using social media.

I think that this resource can be used by teachers very easily. It gives very clear examples on how to use a few websites in an actual classroom. This is a good resource for teacher use. It isn't made for students to look at; it's for teachers to get ideas on how they can use resources. There are always going to many of these blog posts and websites that give tutorials, ideas, lesson plans, etc., but some are good and some are bad. This one is one of the good ones!

A quick little website about the some of the pros and cons of using interactive whiteboards in class and how they worked when researched. 

I think that this may be the content of an article, not a website. Also I question how the results they found have changed, considering that this article was published in 2009. Therefore, I am not sure how relevant the content of this article is, because the technology has undoubtedly changed a lot since it was written. This resource is definitely for teacher use; I think the writers are trying to help teachers see how they can utilize interactive whiteboards more effectively in their classrooms. This article left me questioning what the authors were talking about a little bit: under the "What the Research Found" portion of the article, the authors describe three features "inherent in interactive whiteboards" that have increased student achievement. However, the handheld voting devices and projection of graphics and visuals can be done without an interactive whiteboard. It left me unsure about how useful interactive whiteboards are; I think that if I had my choice of technology in the classroom, an interactive whiteboard would not be high on my list.

50 Web 2.0 sites for use in the classroom 

Gives plenty of resources for TESOL teachers including lesson plans, activities, assessments, teaching tips, etc. You can also contribute your own resources for other teachers. Almost like social media for teachers!

ELL instruction is difficult no matter if you are "qualified" to teach these students or not. These are some good guidelines.

Provides resources and talks about each of the 21st century skills to use in the classroom

This blog is centered around educational technology and using it effectively in the classroom. It contains lesson plan ideas, resources, teaching tips, and more.

Catlin Tucker is an experienced teacher that documents her journey with blended learning. She not only puts on lesson plans, ideas, and resources, but she also makes tutorials for most of the websites/apps.

This is a very cool website. This website has a great deal of information on it and Catlin is very inspirational. I think this resource would be good for teachers to glim inspiration form and for Catlin's students to access information about her courses. For a teacher to have a website is a very new thing and I am sure that many teachers do but have never explored one before; good find!

Blog for a class taught by MMO

gaming in social media

Interesting article weighing the pros and cons of social media in the classroom

I really like how the first person talks about how students "speak the loudest on social media" as well as how teachers need to help students become media literate. Media literate is a necessity for students to become global learners.

A meeting place for a world of reflective writers. This blog is outstanding! I have been trying to come up with new ways to become a better writing teacher. These writing teachers provide free resources for a writing binder they created with their students, and I plan to implement this into my own class!

Since I am a TESOL major, I am very interested in motivation for writing and ways to make writing fun! I definitely think I would use this in the future for advanced students for ESL. It would help me think of new prompts, new ways to make writing fun, and motivation for students. The website is definitely for teacher use because it is a resource for lesson plans and activities. I said it before, there will always be blogs and websites that give resources and ideas like this. But there are a lot of bad blogs and websites and this one definitely has a lot of good ideas!

Great blog, I like how they have it organized and the amount of resources you can find on this blog. This blog had many great ideas for teachers to use while teaching students writing. This is a resource that would be helpful for teachers.

ways to use social media for ELLs.

cute (and gives you something to think about)-a teen's perspective on technology

By far one of my favorite comments is "If teachers feel like students are judging them, that's because we are. We grew up in an age of immaculately designed websites that were made to be user-friendly." I find myself doing this even in Grad School!