Post on 17-Dec-2014
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Teaching 21st Century Teens
Jeanne Skotnicki and Heather Fowler
Introductions
Who are you?
Image source: http://teacher-share.wikispaces.com/file/view/teacher2.jpg/39180696/teacher2.jpg
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Goals
• Share our philosophies, ideas, and tools for creating a twenty-first century classroom.
• Define what a twenty-first century learning community looks like to us and our students.
• Provide an opportunity for you to brainstorm, discuss, and share ideas.
• Be resources for you!• Model collaborative thought process.
Agenda
• Framework for 21st Century Learning– http://www.p21.org/documents/P21_Framework.pdf
• What makes us innovative• Our teaching philosophy and rationale• Our use of Web 2.0 tools and technology – Nings (Blogging & Discussion boards)– Google Docs– Wikis– Class Blogs
• Brief Q &A Sessions
Innovative Teaching
Collaboration = Innovation
Old-School 21st-Century
Why Innovate?
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
--Charles Darwin
Student Reflection
“You and Mrs. Skotnicki did seem to have a unique teaching relationship with how all of your classes seemed intertwined and in a way almost like we had two teachers.”
--Kyle P.“I absolutely loved it! Both of you collaborate often,
share your ideas and always teach what you think is best for your students to learn. Anyone would be lucky to have either one of you as an English teacher, just like I was.”
--Kristen M.
How Can I Collaborate?
• http://docs.google.com/• http://www.ning.com/• Other resources: curriculum maps,
educational Web sites, individual teacher Web sites and blogs.
Brief Discussion
• How do you collaborate? • How could you collaborate? • What do you see as the biggest roadblocks to
planning and/or teaching collaboratively? • Any other questions?
We Facilitate
Our Teaching Philosophy
“The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live.”
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
“A teacher is one who makes [herself] progressively unnecessary.”
--Thomas Carruthers
A Community of Learners
• Students learn actively by participating in blogs, wikis, and discussion boards.
• Students demonstrate leadership and responsibility by self-monitoring their content and digital presence. They are 21st Century Citizens.
• Assignments require students to think critically and respond creatively.
Brief Discussion
• What is 21st-century learning?• Why should educators embrace 21st-century
learning? And, to what degree?• How can you let your students take the reigns
(with your help) and become more self-directed? Any particular units?
• Any other questions?
From Theory To Practice
Student Reflection
“The technology used throughout the course was fairly new to me. I had never blogged before or commented back and forth in a discussion group. Each unit that incorporated a writing aspect helped fine tune my writing skills or some other aspect of my literacy. I learned how to incorporate technology into my homework and pulled a little bit of it into everything I did in high school during the year.”
--Tom C.
Ning
• http://www.ning.com/• Customized, private social network • Uses: student blogging, literature discussion
boards, publication of photos, videos and other media
English 4 Ning
• All 275 students enrolled in English 4 participate
• 300-word blog due weekly• Topic choice = ownership of writing• Authentic audience and feedback• Students monitor and filter their digital
presence
Blogs: Implementation
• Discuss with building administrators first• “Sell it” to the students– Did You Know 2.0
• The appropriate language lesson…• Do account setup and initial assignment in class• Give timely feedback• Require revision!– “I Really Hate…” Blog Post– “Why We Blog” Post
Demonstrating Their Skills
Communication and Collaboration
"Once I was fearful of people's opinions clashing with my own, or fearful of what they'd think about me, but I'm a stronger person due to the blogs. I was able to communicate what I thought with not only my classmates, but all students and faculty members in English 4.”
--Steve B.“I enjoyed reading blogs about things that I don’t usually put
much effort into learning about and seeing what my classmates thought about different issues. Blogging was a way to express what I was feeling and show others what I thought and cared about.”
--Amanda W.
Information Literacy
"I believe that the weekly blogs helped me most in writing skills I need for the rest of my life. They forced me to draw inspiration from somewhat unlikely sources. Also, I discovered that I could write longer, more organized work. An important matter is that I could interact with others and still get credit for schoolwork.”
--Evan D. “…I started to then research topics on things that would interest
me. Sometimes even things that would just hit the news that day. I started to become my own little reporter. I even felt like sometimes I was making a difference in some of the students [sic] lives.”
--Teresa S.
Critical Thinking
“When I began to write my blogs, I discovered feelings about certain things that I never even knew I had. Sometimes without truly sitting and thinking about your thoughts on a particular idea, and/or writing them down, you don’t always know how you feel. This unit forced me to look within myself and discover what I believed in, and how I felt.”
--Katlyn M.
Demonstrating Literacy
"All of the positive comments and feedback I received on my posts really gave me the confidence to want to write more and more. I loved it for the sheer fact that it made me work on my writing skills and allowed me an outlet to say almost anything I wanted, in a poised and organized way. I even started my own independent blog and received an internship from the main site."
--Caitlin B.
Brief Discussion
• How could/do you use this tool in your classroom?
• Any other questions?
Google Docs
What Is It?
• Free, Web-based document sharing tool including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications.
• http://docs.google.com/
Uses & Implementation
• Notes, works cited, outline, Senior Thesis drafts• Students create accounts and share documents
with teacher• Teacher monitors student progress on
assignments, giving timely feedback• Environmentally friendly• Student groups can share folders within Google
Docs
Notes Example
Outline Example
Draft Example
21st Century Skills
"Googledocs [sic] kept all my notes organized and I knew I would never lose them. With all my notes organized, typing my six page essay wasn't very hard at all. I knew what order to put everything in."
--Julia C."Using Google Docs taught me to organize my
information in a way that forced me to cite my sources."
--KelsieT.
Brief Discussion
• How could/do you use this tool in your classroom?
• Additional thoughts or questions?
Wikis
Uses & Implementation
• A Web site that multiple users can edit, sometimes simultaneously. This Web site can have one or many pages, depending upon your purposes.
• Students worked collaboratively in groups during a literature circle unit designing the layout and content of a site dedicated to common topic.
• Multi-media: videos, photos, poetry, textual quotes, Web pages, news articles
Children And War Discussion Board
Student Reflection
"As much as I knew about war, having to connect books, movies, songs, and other pieces of literature seemed like it was going to take a lot of work. After doing some research [sic] the analysis skills from previous units in the year really helped me breakdown the different pieces and put the web site together fairly easily. I was able to develop better partner skills as we had to work in groups of three to put the web site together. As a group [sic] we all worked on little parts and analyzed different backgrounds of literature. By putting together this website, not only did it help skills with working together [sic], but also organizing and developing an actual website." --Cory E.
Other Ideas For Wikis
• Log classroom activities and resources• Ask students to become experts on a topic
and create wiki pages that share their finding with the rest of the class.
• Create study guides for a novel or a unit. • Shared work space for group projects.
Brief Discussion
• How could/do you use Wikis in your classroom?
• Other thoughts?
Class Blogs
Our Next Step
“Yes, yes, yes. If you miss a lot of school and are late EVERY day, they definitely help!”
--Madeline M.
“I forgot we even had that blog. I think I used it once.”
--Stephanie W.
Questions?
jskotnicki@gmail.comheather.m.fowler@gmail.com