If our kids are not engaged, they are disengaged!

As a follow up to my last post, I will share some of the Web 2.0 tools that were introduced to me by Heidi Hayes Jacobs.  She suggests that in order to upgrade our teaching practices, we must use the contemporary tools that are currently readily available.

Gapminder - a place where statistics and world data come alive.

Example:  Life Expectancy vs. Income Per Person

Museum Box - This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie.

Timetoast - Timetoast allows people to create interactive timelines, which they can share anywhere on the web. Anyone can join Timetoast and start creating and sharing their own timelines, all they need is a valid email address. It's completely free!

Google Lit Trips - Google Lit Trips are free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth. At each location along the journey there are placemarks with pop-up windows containing a variety of resources including relevant media, thought provoking discussion starters, and links to supplementary information about “real world” references made in that particular portion of the story. The focus is on creating engaging and relevant literary experiences for students.

Wordle - Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking about a possible "upgrade". 

When people are having fun, they will be engaged.

For a little inspiration....

Check out thefuntheory.com

Would you take the stairs?

How can we prepare our learners for their future?

Last school year, I had a the privilege of attending a workshop facilitated by Heidi Hayes Jacobs.  Her presentation was inspiring and invigorating to say the least.  She made a point of highlighting all the reasons why it is necessary for educators of today to "upgrade" their current practice.

She started off the session with a few reflection questions:

How can we prepare our learners for THEIR future?  

What year are you preparing your learners for?

She reminded us that all of the instructional decisions we make on a daily basis must be in the best interest of students.  We don't want to set up learning environments that have our students traveling back in time.  We need to think about the new literacies that are so relevant in our students' futures- digital, media and global-  and how we, as educators, will upgrade our practices to keep the learning relevant for students.  

All of the "tools" that we use in our classrooms impact student's learning.  As educators, we need to wrap our thoughts around the fact that we have 21st century learners, using 20th century curriculum's  and sitting in 19th century structures.  When we think about our current education system we would want to consider how to work within these constraints or parameters while still remaining relevant to our key audience - the students.  As teachers of 21st century learners we need to consider the use of contemporary tools.  Heidi does not suggest that we are "adding to the plate" but rather engaging in a strategic replacement.  We want to remove those ineffective dated ways and replace them with more recent and relevant teaching methods.  

In order for this upgrade to occur, we also need to own our own learning and intentionally consider an "upgrade".    Heidi helped us reflect on this point by considering David.  David could represent any student that currently sits in one of your classes.  She points out that what we want David to know and be able to do is restricted by what we know and are able to do.  This was a very powerful message.  It surely hit home the point that unless we are up to date, relevant and able to use contemporary learning tools we will not be equipped with the knowledge necessary to assist David in becoming a person prepared for his future.  

Heidi referred to two types of pedagogy -
Antiquated pedagogy where a teacher covers content: A teacher would have a relationship with the material not the students.  

Classical pedagogy where a teacher thinks very carefully about what to cut to make room for replacement, what to keep and what to create:  A teacher would have a relationship with the students not the material.  

Many wonderful "contemporary tools" were shared which will be discussed in a future post.  

You can check out her clearing house of resources.

Thank you to Heidi for such a wonderful learning opportunity.  It provided me the time for reflection and analysis of my own practice.  I left the session giving deep consideration to my next steps for an upgrade.