Posted on December 15th, 2007 in 21st Century Learning by laurencemarks

The evolving context for education in the 21st century

 

David Puttnam / Curriculum Corporation

Teachers are immigrants in their students’ digital world and risk being sidelined as irrelevant if they fail to embrace the learning potential offered by digital technologies.

Former film producer turned British Labour politician David Puttnam keynote address at Curriculum Corporation 14th Annual Conference in Sydney said that today’s students were “digital natives” who had never known a world without a computer. But they were forced to “power down” when they entered a classroom to cope with their teachers, whom he described as “digital immigrants”, suspicious of technology and begrudging of its place in schools.

Hear the interview:
The evolving context for education in the 21st century (Audio)

 

Posted:13-12-2007 on the Creative Economy Blog Post.  Creative Economy  is a gateway to research and commentary on developments in Australia’s creative industries and their cultural and social impact, hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI). The site draws on the resources of Australian Policy Online, together with outputs from industry groups, consultants and other researchers and research organisations.

Developing the Global Student

Posted on November 20th, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Best Practices, Pedagogical Practice by laurencemarks

Developing the Global Student: Practical Ways to Infuse 21st Century Literacy Skills in Your Classroom

Here a must see presentation from Kim Cofino, and she presented this at two conferences:

  • Teach IT! Conference, Singapore in November 2007
  • EARCOS Teachers Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in March 2008

Watch it let me know what you think, or let others, including Kim Cofino

[slideshare id=161540&doc=developing-the-global-student-v2-1194743695449510-4&w=425]

Here is student perspective of the same importance:

Education In The 21st Century


Essentials in Life-Long Learning

Posted on November 4th, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Best Practices, Pedagogical Practice, Teacher Leaders by laurencemarks

Learning 2.0 Project

This program was originally developed and launched for the staff at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in August 2006

This video, Seven and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners, will provide you with a refresher on what it means to be a lifelong learner.

Seven and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

7 ½ Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

Habit 1: Begin with the end in mind
Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning
Habit 3: View problems as challenges
Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox
Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage
Habit 7: Teach/mentor others
Habit 7 ½: Play


Shift Happens

Posted on October 14th, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Beginnings by laurencemarks

This video started small, and the target audience was about 150 teaching staff. It has now reached over five million downloads. What is this video saying to us? Why should we not only watch it, but take it’s messages as something bigger … than … well, you decide. Enjoy (or not)!

Teacher Leaders Network

Posted on October 7th, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Best Practices, Pedagogical Practice, Teacher Leaders by laurencemarks

Teacher Leaders Network

Technology and 21st Century Learning: A List of Resources

“Initiatives for change that don’t involve teachers as partners in rethinking educational practices and how technology might provide radically better tools are going to have a big problem.” – Roy Pea

Here is an impressive list of articles, tools, strategies, and instructional methods to enhance teaching and learning with technology. This is a great place to start your thinking around teaching and learning in the 21st Century. As the quote above suggests, this is about all teachers becoming leaders in teaching and learning. On may argue that the 21st Century learner requires such leadership.


New Literacies?

Posted on September 25th, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Pedagogical Practice by laurencemarks

The New Literacy – 21st Century skill

  

Schools, colleges and university are just some of the places where learning takes place but school kids and students can spend a lot of their time in these spaces. There are other places where people learn, some through doing courses at work or online or even learning from others around them in all sorts of situations. The posts here are about learning spaces, writings about learning and technology and thoughts and ideas about all of these.

The New Literacy – 21st Century skill
Published by Worcestershire e-learning Blog on Sunday, September 2, 2007 at 11:02 AM
Many educators are concerned about the way in which students seem to accept the results thrown up by Google as the ultimate truth and there are major efforts in the UK to raise the level of web literacy for students and educators alike. Understanding what you are looking at, knowing its origin and whether the content is valid is a 21st century skill for learners of any age. We have never been in the quite the position of having to validate the sources of information they way we do now. Many of us are used to paper based publications which have ISBN numbers, known publishers and which are subject to peer review or scrutiny by peers prior to piublication and we are often told something about the author. This is not the case for the web and search engines like Google. A colleague of mine created a situation in a school which was filmed for Teacher TV – a UK service sharing practice and ideas within the teaching profession. This film says it all. The New Literacy – 21st Century skill
Thank you for this post by

Dave Thomson whom writes for the education blog in the UK

21st Cenury Learning Resources and Repository

Posted on September 23rd, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Beginnings, Best Practices, Pedagogical Practice by laurencemarks
Great site to support teachers in getting started around 21st Century Skills and pedagogical approaches to support 21st Century Learners

21st Cenury Learning Resources and Repository

  

21 Twenty-first Century Learning
Differentiated Instruction

Effectively meet the individualized needs of students.

In addition, the strategies shared will enrich the following areas in your classroom.

Motivation • Social Skills • Classroom Management • Critical Thinking • Positive Environment

 

Curriculum Mapping

Explore, Plan, Evaluate, and Implement Curriculum that works.

Systemic Change • Classroom Curriculum• Collaborative Planning • Organization

m-Learning: Positioning educators for a mobile, connected future

Posted on September 23rd, 2007 in 21st Century Learning by laurencemarks

The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 8, No 2 (2007), ISSN: 1492-3831

m-Learning: Positioning educators for a mobile, connected future

Kristine Peters

Abstract

Mobile learning is variously viewed as a fad, a threat, and an answer to the learning needs of time-poor mobile workers, so does it have a place in delivering ‘mainstream’ learning? Based on a 2005 comparative research project, commissioned by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, the paper reports on research into web-based information about the use of mobile technologies for commerce and learning, which was then tested through 29 interviews with manufacturers of mobile devices, businesses and education providers. The research found that mobile technologies were in common use in some commercial sectors but use purely for learning was rare. However m-learning lends itself to new methods of delivery that are highly suited to the ‘just enough, just in time, and just for me’ demands of twenty-first century learners.

Full Text: HTML PDF MP3

First days of school

Posted on September 5th, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Beginnings by laurencemarks

As in my previous post, the new year has started, and in this seventh year of this new century, we are faced with increasing change, speed of everyday live, and the questions of what school still needs to look and sound like. School 2.0 is getting a lot of press these days. I get new updates through Google Alerts nearly everyday about teaching and learning in the 21st Century. Is this a new band-wagon, or is there going to be systemic change as a consequence of this read/write, Web 2.0, digital environment.
Newsweek Back to School 2.0 by Rachael King

Education projects such as the Aspirnaut Initiative aim to harness technology to better prepare U.S. students to compete in the global economy

Children in Grapevine, Ark., often board the school bus in the dark, some even packing pillows and blankets. For students in Arkansas’ rural Sheridan School District, the ride can last as long as an hour and a half, and probably seems longer thanks to rules against behavior that could distract the driver. But lately the 15-hour weekly commute is looking up. Thanks to a pilot program called the Aspirnaut Initiative, the bus has been outfitted with an Internet router and the children have been given either video iPods or laptops. The machines have been loaded with educational videos such as National Geographic Society’s Wild Chronicles to teach concepts such as the relationship between predator and prey.

Read the rest of the article here Back to School 2.0

 

 

First day of school

Posted on September 3rd, 2007 in 21st Century Learning, Beginnings by laurencemarks

Time

Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006

How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century By Claudia Wallis, Sonja Steptoe

There’s a dark little joke exchanged by educators with a dissident streak: Rip Van Winkle awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year snooze and is, of course, utterly bewildered by what he sees. Men and women dash about, talking to small metal devices pinned to their ears. Young people sit at home on sofas, moving miniature athletes around on electronic screens. Older folk defy death and disability with metronomes in their chests and with hips made of metal and plastic. Airports, hospitals, shopping malls–every place Rip goes just baffles him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old man knows exactly where he is. “This is a school,” he declares. “We used to have these back in 1906. Only now the blackboards are green.”

Accessed from Time.com, September 03, 2007

Tomorrow is my daughter’s first day of ECS (Kindergarten), and the start of another new year of school. I thought that this would be a good place to start my blog; it is a new beginning for a new student (and hopefully continuing as a stellar learner), and a new year for a good number of other students (hopefully as learners, as well). I wonder what kind of learning career she will have in school, and I hope it is not the one portrayed in Rip Van Winkle’s awakening.

I make this point to reveal the fact that I am excited to see my daughter reach a new mile-stone in her life, and I am excited for her because she is so excited to be “doing” school. I am, however, scared, as a dad, to see my daughter growing up faster than I could ever imagine. Likewise, I, too, am scared for all those other young people in school where they are “doing” school, an institution that may not be serving them as best it should. This blog is intended to support teachers in their quest to support learners to live a full life in school and not the one witnessed by Rip Van Winkle.