For starters, Web
publication gives students a real audience to write to and, when
optimized, a collaborative environment where they can give and receive
feedback, mirroring the way professional writers use a workshop
environment to hone their craft
"If you limit
students' power by wrestling over permission to publish, then they'll
ignore technology use in school."
Our kids’ futures will require them to be:
Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.”
More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information.
More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world.
Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids.
More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically.
Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice.
More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world.
Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.
Easily the greatest struggle that educators face in today's day and age is properly preparing students for a future that is poorly defined yet rapidly changing.
greater challenge, the researchers wrote, is in expanding teachers' knowledge of new instructional practices that will allow them to select and use the right technology, in the right way, with the right students, for the right purpose.
Google Docs. The application's power to support collaborative writing and in-depth feedback, however, was not being realized. Teachers were not encouraging group-writing assignments and their feedback focused overwhelmingly on issues such as spelling and grammar, rather than content and organization.
experts seem to agree on: so-called "job-embedded" professional development that takes place consistently during the workday
the greater challenge, the researchers wrote, is in expanding teachers' knowledge of new instructional practices that will allow them to select and use the right technology, in the right way, with the right students, for the right purpose.