Although, this class certainly feels like tech bootcamp. I am actually attending my district's version starting tomorrow. I'm going to be learning about Alternatives to Powerpoint, Moodle (although I've got some experience with it already), Geocaching, and Robotics in the Classroom. I'll try to blog or tweet some this week about what I am learning. I actually like Twitter quite a bit surprisingly-I recently stumbled upon lots of great resources for parenting GT kiddos-much appreciated as my 10 year old hits 6th grade in the fall! Yikes!
On another note, "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" is a column that appears in AFT's American Educator magazine. Here is a link to a very interesting article entitled "Have Technology and Multitasking Rewired How Students Learn? You can imagine why this caught my eye! While not exactly "guidelines" the author's four summary points are worth thinking about.
1. Encourage your students to avoid multitasking when doing an important task. Younger people are not better at multitasking. They are less bad because their brains have greater working memory capacity.
2. If a new piece of technology is placed in your classroom with the expectation that you will use it, take advantage of online teacher communities. Just like we're being encouraged to do!
3. Think about what the technology can and can't do. There are advantages and disadvantages to using technology... think about what you want to accomplish and whether the technology will get you there most effectively or not.
4. There is nothing wrong with engagement. Even though brain reseach does not show a correlation between having technology in the classroom and deeper understanding of content, if it just gets kids attention- that's OK too.
The video below is about Multitasking... cool stuff. My husband has been trying to tell me this for years, however, my response is "It is impossible not to multitask when you're outnumbered." :)
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
21st Century Skills?
So full disclosure, I am a skeptic. I'm not an early technology adopter. I am highly interested in it but only in how it can streamline or bring deeper meaning to the life I want to live. That said- teaching philosophy... I believe much more in the art of teaching than the "science" of prescriptive or reactive education. Yong Zhao and Michigan State University (my alma mater! go state!) has been blogging about this recently. So any sort of educational research that attempts to apply to all students in all classroom makes me wary. Not to say I totally discount it, but you've really got to convince me.
So here are my thoughts: The imagery of education as a factory producing a product alluded to at the beginning of the chapter is one which I dislike intensely. But the idea of 21st century skills not only for the workforce- (really that is not the sum of a person's meaningful life)- but for successful citizenship, I am intrigued by. The examples of 21st century skills: adaptability, complex communications/social skills, non-routine problem solving, self management/self development, systems thinking, all sound like skills that were used when family farms were the norm and people collaborated for success rather than competed against one another in their "cubes" to have the most. (The U.S. competing against the rest of the world instead of collaborating for a common good got me going a bit too.) Somewhere along the line we have "untaught" or removed the opportunity to learn these skills. I'm not sure how or where that happened. The upshot is... I'm not sure I'd accurately call them exclusively "21st Century Skills."
Thoughts on "adapting" or applying the 21st century skill set in the science classroom: I really get excited about these. Using authentic scientific experiences in the classroom, I agree is best practice. Giving students the opportunity to "act" like real scientists- dirt and uncertainties, arguments and all, encouraging thinking outside the box or circle or whatever- what students often miss is the importance of creativity and collaboration in the scientific world. I'm excited by how 21st century technology will come into play in helping students develop these skill sets.
So here are my thoughts: The imagery of education as a factory producing a product alluded to at the beginning of the chapter is one which I dislike intensely. But the idea of 21st century skills not only for the workforce- (really that is not the sum of a person's meaningful life)- but for successful citizenship, I am intrigued by. The examples of 21st century skills: adaptability, complex communications/social skills, non-routine problem solving, self management/self development, systems thinking, all sound like skills that were used when family farms were the norm and people collaborated for success rather than competed against one another in their "cubes" to have the most. (The U.S. competing against the rest of the world instead of collaborating for a common good got me going a bit too.) Somewhere along the line we have "untaught" or removed the opportunity to learn these skills. I'm not sure how or where that happened. The upshot is... I'm not sure I'd accurately call them exclusively "21st Century Skills."
Thoughts on "adapting" or applying the 21st century skill set in the science classroom: I really get excited about these. Using authentic scientific experiences in the classroom, I agree is best practice. Giving students the opportunity to "act" like real scientists- dirt and uncertainties, arguments and all, encouraging thinking outside the box or circle or whatever- what students often miss is the importance of creativity and collaboration in the scientific world. I'm excited by how 21st century technology will come into play in helping students develop these skill sets.
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