Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century

Just a few things to keep you reading, thinking, "mucking around", and while you're doing that you will have fun. For creative and innovative ideas, collaborative opportunities, communicating what's good, and critically assessing teaching and learning in the 21st century, start here and go to hundreds of other links. These are posts from REAL teachers and REAL TEACHER CANDIDATES - They have an interest in being awesome educators, sharing practical Tech Tools and apps/websites with you. Enjoy!

Sunday, November 25, 2012

So Papa, How Do You Like the iPad?

This short clip is in German, but understandable to all ... The young woman asks her dad, how do you like the new iPad I got you?

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Mansfield Outdoor Education Centre

Don't miss the fun at Mansfield ... February 25th to March 1st ... It promises to be a great time for all!

Mansfield main lodge presentationwords from Jo-han M-ash

Saturday, November 17, 2012

21st Century School Administrator

Wonderful Link ... Visit this great site for Principals: http://the21stcenturyprincipal.blogspot.ca/2009_12_01_archive.html

Article below by: J. Robinson (Dec. 2009)

There have been a number of articles, books, and documents created that talk about 21st Century learning skills. Most of these can leave the administrator puzzling of what exactly it is that students need to learn. Bernie Trilling of the Oracle Education Foundation and Charles Fadel global leader of education at Cisco Systems have published a book entitled 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times. This book fulfills a very specific need for school administrators. It describes in a concise and direct manner what 21st Century learning should look like. Trilling and Fadel provide a combination of brief definitions of skills and examples of those skills throughout this book. They also provide a framework into which to place these skills. That framework includes 21st century learning skill groups called learning and innovation skills, digital literacy skills, and career and life skills. They also provide the following pictorial representation of how these skills fit into what would they term the “21st Century Learning Outcomes.”

Trilling and Fadel’s 21st Century Learning Outcomes

Throughout their book, Trilling and Fadel provide a concise, no-nonsense discussion of 21st Century learning. Eventually, they condense these skills down to what they call the “7Cs of 21st century learning.”

These skills include:
1) critical thinking and problem solving
2) creativity and innovation
3) collaboration, teamwork, and leadership
4) cross-cultural understanding
5) communication, information, and media literacy
6) computing and ICT literacy
7) career and learning self-reliance.

This is one book every school administrator needs to add to her/his collection. I might even buy some tabs to stick to pages of my copy to make the individual topics more accessible.

The copy of the book I purchased also including a DVD of mini-documentaries that discuss the themes of 21st Century learning. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills web site address is here: Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Interactive ebooks for Children

Students improve their reading skills by:

•Listening for modeled fluency

•Reading for practice

•Recording their reading

•Checking comprehension with quizzes

Students log in to get books and quizzes assigned by their teachers or parents.

http://www.raz-kids.com/ This site is a trial site ... if like it you could sign up. It is amazing though!

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Welcome to the 21st Century

Welcome to the 21st Century is a brief look at the 21st Century learner, what are the characteristics that a learner today in our technology enabled society has. This page links to other 21st Century articles, posts and pages. I have also included a page on comparing the 20th and 21st Century educational paradigms. This page begins to place some of the changes between the two different educational paradigms. We often hear about the 21st Century Learner, but what about the 21st Century Teacher? Here are some thoughts and ideas about the 21st Century teacher and the characteristics they would possess. About how we facilitate 21st Century Learning.

Educational Origami

Educational Origami

Educational Origami is a blog and a wiki, about 21st Century Teaching and Learning. This wiki is not just about the integration of technology into the classroom, though this is certainly a critical area, it is about shifting our educational paradigm. The world is not as simple as saying teachers are digital immigrants and students digital natives. In fact, we know that exposure to technology changes the brains of those exposed to it. The longer and stronger the exposure and the more intense the emotions the use of the technology or its content evokes, the more profound the change. This technology is increasingly ubiquitous. We have to change how we teach, how we assess, what we teach, when we teach it, where we are teaching it, and with what. Its a tall order, but these are exciting times.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Ski Snow Valley in Barrie

A little video to show you what a typical day will look like for your little kiddie ...

Saturday, November 10, 2012

19Pencils

Quick and Easy Tools for Learning. Quizzes, Games, Websites and More! Don't waste time fighting traditional search engines. Save time and energy and search for content used by teachers just like you. Resources include websites, videos, quizzes and more. Each presented in a very visual way with a description and even indications of previous use by other teachers. Save to your class page, or to your favorites for easy access later in a single click. Even filter searches by grade, school, or district to see what your colleagues have discovered.

The Easiest Way to Discover and Share Educational Content. This is like having many teacher/classroom blogs available to you and you go on their favourite websites to learn and have fun. Free to join.

http://www.19pencils.com/

SpellingCity

SpellingCity

Spelling & Vocabulary Website

The SpellingCity website has:
•Over 42,000 words with customizable sentences and definitions
•A REAL person who says each word and sentence
•Free home pages for teachers and parents to save lists
•Teacher training videos
•Free printable handwriting worksheets
•Free teaching resources with lists and lesson plans
•Twenty-five games to play online or to print such as:
•A free forum and newsletters
Alphabetical Order, Unscramble, Parts of Speech, HangMouse, Crossword Puzzle, WordSearch, and Vocabulary Test.

Teachers: They have Parent Letters available as a PDF for you to print and send home with your students' spelling word lists. If you're going to do spelling, why not make it fun ... very cool site ... check it out!

The 30 Best Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers (2012 Edition)

Looking for the best cloud computing software for your school? What about a way to remotely store homework and other assignments? It’s time to figure out which web 2.0 tool is right for you! The following presentation (slideshare) contains dozens of the most popular tools being used in classrooms right now. They’re useful, most are free (some are freemium), and true time-savers. You’ve probably heard of some, but I can almost guarantee there’s something new here for you. Each slide in the below presentation by Rafael Scapin contains the name, description, link, and screenshot of what each tool looks like and does. Easy ... Enjoy!

The Best Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers - 2012 Edition from Rafael Scapin

http://edudemic.com/2012/10/best-web-tools-2012/

The 100 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools

In order to put together a list of the best Web 2.0 classroom tools, Twitter followers were polled, Facebook fans responded, and a contest was run to try and get as many submissions as possible.
There were more than 900 submissions, but here are the Top 100 different Web 2.0 tools that were recommended by your peers. After all, what better way to uncover new products than by the people you are already sharing with? The following list is in no particular order so be sure to examine it closely for awesome resources. Each resource is written in big bold letters, followed by the description offered by the person who submitted the resource. Well worth the time to go here and see what strikes your fancy! Great list posted by Jeff Dunn.

Quizlet

Quizlet

The world learns on Quizlet.They've made a simple tool that lets you study anything, for free.

Teacher's Link: http://quizlet.com/teachers/

Teachers can choose from ENGLISH, MATH, SCIENCE, LANGUAGES, and SOCIAL SCIENCES - WOW!!

Learn anything your own way: There are 6 different study modes
Flashcards: Flip through and familiarize yourself with the material.
Learn Mode: Track your progress and review the things you got wrong.
Scatter: Match words to their definitions and try to finish faster than your friends.
Speller: Type what you hear. It works in 18 different languages.
Test: Prepare for the actual test with an automatically graded quiz.
Space Race: Earn points by typing in words before their definitions vanish off the screen.

Study with friends: It's a great way to work together
Join a class: Find your classes to share and learn together.
In the classroom:Quizlet is great in the classroom, for individual study or group exercises.
Friendly Competition: Show off your scores — and your knowledge.

Check out the QUIZLET DEMO and QUIZLET TUTORIAL

Kwiksurveys

Kwiksurveys ...

The only free & unlimited survey tool. Remember, Survey Monkey is free up to 10 questions only ... KWIKSURVEY is FREE for unlimited questions and all tools are available!

kwiksurveys.com is the leading provider of free survey management tools and feedback solutions. Powerful, scalable, easy to use and free. It helps engage students, families and educators. Thousands of organizations and individuals worldwide, rely on kwiksurveys.com to collect information for them.

It is the easiest survey tool to use, yet the most powerful survey software on the planet.

•No hidden charges, it's free !

•Unlimited number of questions, answers and surveys

•Premium and free support options available

•Secure and Reliable service

•The most popular free survey software

•Free survey tool & builder software

•Downloadable results ( MS Word, Excel)
•Brandable Surveys, Logo's and custom themes
•Embedded surveys directly into HTML webpages, forums etc.

Screenr

Screencasts made easy ... Capture what you say and do on your computer (Mac or PC) fast and easy. Then, you can post it to FB, Twitter, or embed in a blog. It's fast, easy, and actually fun. You can even play it on the iphone!

Teachers can record their lesson to post and students can go and watch it. Try it, they'll like it!

Watch this 1-minute video to see how easy it is to do ... click here

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere ... Instant Audience Feedback

It is the best way to create stylish real-time experiences for events using mobile devices. Poll Everywhere replaces expensive proprietary audience response hardware with standard web technology. It's the easiest way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms — anywhere. And because it works internationally with texting, web, your cell phone, or Twitter, its simplicity and flexibility are earning rave reviews.

What's the price? For schools, K-12 is FREE ... with up to 40 participants per poll. So, you should be fine!

To watch a short video on how to create a poll, click here.

SlideRocket ... Revisited

SlideRocket

Here's a sample of a pdf made into a slideshow. Quick and easy.

Slideful

Slideful ... online slideshow maker. This site walks you step-by-step to come up with a slideshow. You can then add it to a blog (like was done here). This was just basic ... no text, no effects, no nothing, just pictures with a transition. This took all of 5 minutes to make. Given more time, you can come up with really neat slideshows.

PowToon