21st Century Learning

Rip Mix Learn

RML After the Show -- Sheryl and Bud, Wow!

Darren posted this on his blog...http://adifference.blogspot.com/

I just got home from my inservice. My part, Rip, Mix, Learn was in the morning only, from 9 to 11:30 am. I went to another session on project based learning in applied math in the afternoon. But my head has been reeling from the morning's session.

Sheryl and Bud, I can't thank you enough for your incredible contributions! I was only able to read your comments, on the blog and in the chatbox, now. I was so rushed during the workshop I just couldn't participate in or observe your part of things. I've got to tell you that I think the comments you made and the simple fact of your presence made it a success beyond my wildest imagination! You both made such insightful and helpful comments to the teachers  in the workshop. And to answer one of Sheryl's questions -- yes, they were all math teachers. ;-) workshop. And to answer one of Sheryl's questions -- yes, they were all math teachers. ;-)

It was an interesting experience. I believe Skype, at least so we could have heard, would have made the experience stronger. Being able to talk to some of the participants and comment on the blogs was really cool. I had only read Darren's blog once prior to showing up for this experience,finding it on Stephen Down's page but I had read about Rip Mix Learn on an older  Brian Lamb page and a 2004 Alan Levin presentation.

In November I plan to give a similar presentation in Alabama and follow-up with a virtual make and take workshop. I hope Darren will return the "visitors from afar" favor.

What it means to be literate in the 21st century.

David Warlick recently wrote about an upcoming Keynote (really a series of three) he is giving entitled Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century in his blog. This address will make a case for an expanded view of what it means to be literate in a time when information is networked, digital, and overwhelming.

       "Being literate in this future will certainly involve the ability to read, write, and do basic math. However, the concept of literacy in the 21st century will be far richer and more comprehensive than the 3 Rs of the one room school house. "

He raises some very thought provoking questions.

• What do you need to know, when most of recorded knowledge is a mouse-click away?
• How do you distinguish between good knowledge and bad knowledge?
  
• What does it do to the value of information, when everyone is a producer?
  
• How do we address ethics, when we are empowering our students with such prevailing skills?

I tried to breech this topic with my graduate level preservice teachers. They just arent seeing it. They are so hung up on meeting the standards and giving kids the predetermined curriculum that they are blind to the fact that while having a minimum standards level of academic competency is important--it isnt all there is to becoming educated or to preparing kids to be successful in the 21st century.

I started my lesson on planning and preparing educational environments with Harry Chapin's "Flowers are Red."  Afterward I ask them to react. They felt that there comes a time in a child's life when flowers should be red and leaves should be green. That creativity is for art. I asked them if they felt that the scientist, social reformers, physicians, and teachers of tomorrow wouldnt need creative, higher order thinking skills to solve the problems society will face? No matter how much we discussed it, they just couldnt connect.

I am going to start my lesson next Monday with David's question...What do you need to know, when most of recorded knowledge is a mouse-click away?

I was working with a friend today, John Norton, on Drupal. We were so pumped at what it could do and the possibilities for our virtual community work.  He said something I thought was so profound.  He  sort of had this epiphany-- a real ah-ha moment (but adult style) -- he said.. wow-- you really have to think very deeply about what you want and what you want to be able to do when you are building  something like this.  I immediately thought there it is! There is the type of cognition we are trying to elicit from our students in the classroom when we facilitate their construction of knowledge.

Thanks David and John-- for my own Ah ha moment.

 

 

The Buck Stops Here

David Warlick's post, "Contemporary Literacy: Who and When" rang so true with me. In it he discusses Jon Pederson's post's Challenge to the New Information Environment. Jon asks the following question:

What percentage of adults have the required skills to a) navigate this environment and b) be critical consumers of information? Can we expect our students to be proficient with these skills when adults aren’t?

David responds with the following:
This is an excellent question, and I’d love to see the percents myself.  Pew Internet and American Life project has a lot of good statistics, but I’d answer the question this way. The adults who have managed to gain these skills are those who had to. People who work in professions that have access to networked, digital information and owe their success to decisions based on that information, have gained those skills, or else they don’t do it any more. You learn it when you have to. It’s called life-long learning.

What’s really hurting our children is that most teachers don’t have to. They can continue to teach with five-year-old textbooks, cut off from the world by four solid walls, and experience the success that their leaders expect. They won’t teach contemporary literacy, because they don’t need it themselves, because they’re still working within an antiquated industrial age institution.

This really came home for me last night. I am experimenting with an electronic mentorship project on Tapped In  where my graduate pre-service education students explore 21st century learning concepts with seasoned teacher leaders from the Teacher Leaders Network. It is a win-win kind of strategy where accomplished teachers are willing to immerse themselves in social networking tools in an effort to offer electronic mentoring support to pre-service teachers in the field and during their student teaching experiences. The teacher leaders benefit by exposure to electronic communication tools and the confidence of these net geners in using web-based learning strategies. The emerging educators benefit because they get "just in time" solutions to the problems they are facing in the classroom with age old teaching strategies and classroom management. The students benefit because the preservice teachers are better teachers earlier in their careers and have 24/7 support for problems as they arise and they are allowed to learn in meaningful ways as a result of the information shared in the class and the project. The point I want to make here is while I see over and over what David refers to as "dont do it because they dont have to"-- these teacher leaders do it because they "want to". The motivation is they want to give back to the profession and to do so they are willing to master technologies that are new and challenging to them.

Last night--I caught one of my students (preservice teacher) online. He was in the mood to chat. He shared that now that he was midway into his education program he was questioning his decision to go into education. His disenchantment came from the disconnect he was seeing in his education courses. He complained that while we were advocating constructivism we were assigning behavioral type assignments to carry out in the field with students. And that his cooperating teacher was not modeling  anything close to what he was learning about.  That students in his class had never worked in groups and barely could read and when they did it was simply calling words from a page. That there was no wonderment or excitement about learning and certainly no "technology as a medium" examples to follow.

I started thinking. You know I have often said you cant give away what you do not own. If I do not own a car- I can't loan or give one to you. If I do not own contemporary literacy- how can I give it to you? Maybe these K-12 teachers feel they do not need it because it was never given to them. If teachers of education do not own it--which seems obvious by the way we structure our classes and our reluctance to embed the concepts we are advocating in our assignments and assessments, then how can we expect to pass it on? How can we expect to give to our preservice students what we do not own and in turn, how can we expect these emergent teachers to think they "have to" ?

While I agree with David and Jon that principled changes in K-12 education is desperately needed-- I think we have to start at the root of the problem first-- Colleges of Education.

 

21st Century Learning - You Cannot Give Away What You Do Not Own

Because of my firm belief in technology’s ability to level the playing field and open doors for all children, regardless of race, socio-economic background, or exceptionalities, I am driven to making sure that teachers (and parents) have the technology vision and skills they need to unleash the unlimited potential in their children. We can’t educate students who have been raised in a world of instant, interactive information by simply thinking up clever ways to use computers in the typical row-and-column classroom activities. What Roland Barth calls the cemetary method... neat rows and very still. We have to ask ourselves what principled changes should we make in our classroom to ensure that we are developing the skill set these students will need as they face the challenges fo the future. Are we preparing kids for yesterday, today, or tomorrow? Do our schools currently focus upon the skills of the past---or the skills of the future? Are current classroom techniques helping those we teach become future scientists, technologists, and imagineers who will solve the social ills of the society of the future? Are we developing skills such as: 

Personal and social responsibility

Planning, critical thinking, reasoning, and creativity

Strong communication skills with a global emphasis

Cross-cultural understanding

Visualizing and decision-making

For best results we need to use open-ended, performance based lessons that use technology as a tool. We need to use cooperative and problem-based learning to help students create and construct knowledge. Computers should be used as a vehicle for stimulating communication and collaboration. It is with issues such as these that this Blog will grapple. Please feel free to weigh in and share. I look forward to learning from you along the way.