The 21st Century Classroom Cori Krause EDU 580 Summer 2008

What does the 21st Century Student look like?

“Teachers in every strata of education are increasingly dealing with a student population that is not only more wired than they are but also grew up in a techno-drenched atmosphere that has trained them to absorb and process information in fundamentally different ways. This generation of students is more likely to be armed with cell phones, laptops, and iPods than with spiral notebooks and No. 2 pencils.” --Josh McHugh, Edutopia contributor

How many times have you… Had your class interrupted by a ringtone? Asked a student to “take out the earbuds?” Caught a student texting in your class? Been asked, “can we listen to our iPods when we are finished?”

How do we effectively integrate technology into the classroom?

“Effective tech integration must happen across the curriculum in ways that research shows deepen and enhance the learning process. In particular, it must supporting four key components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts. Effective technology integration is achieved when the use of technology is routine and transparent and when technology supports curricular goals.” --Edutopia staff

What are some tools we can use to implement technology in the classroom?

http://www.flickr.com

The flicker website is a great tool for networking with other schools across the country. Students could create photo essays and post them to the flickr website (classes could use the appropriate privacy manager tools.) They could also tour the site and find photos from places that they are studying or topics similar to what they are reading about. Students could work with students in other areas of the country or world and see how differently people interpret the same material depending on where one lives.

http://pbwiki.com

Student Portfolios - A wiki makes an easy shell for electronic portfolios where students can display and discuss their work with others. It would also be an excellent forum for peer editing and peer feedback to help students improve their writing skills.

Literature Circles in Elementary School Literature Circles in Elementary School. Instead of sharing their thoughts on paper, they could post them to the wiki, respond to their peers thoughts or questions and best of all save this work for the next class to review at sometime during their exploration of the same novel. ~Becky Small

www.backflip.com

Backflip is a great way to make using the Internet in the classroom a whole lot more efficient. Time is precious in the classroom. There never seems to be enough, and when you are using computers it would be great to use a site like backflip to save time on typing URLs. It would also be a great site for organizing sites for research projects. For example, when working on a research paper, students could create a page on backflip that would list all the sites they plan to use on their research. The URL of their sites could be submitted along with their papers as a sort of annotated bibliography. In addition, students could easily navigate between their backflip site and their resources for quick and efficient access.

http://classblogmeister.com

Class blogs are a great way to get students to respond to what they have read or discussed in class. A great initiation would be to pull up a blog that was done for homework and use it to begin a class discussion. It is a great way to tie homework into classwork and discussion. It allows for more thought than the traditional classroom quickwrite. Students are able to have time to think of what they want to say and will have an audience to their work. It is also a great way to post notes or assignments.

Why is technology so important?

The myriad resources of the online world also provide each classroom with more interesting, diverse, and current learning materials. The Web connects students to experts in the real world and provides numerous opportunities for expressing understanding through images, sound, and text. --Edutopia staff, “Why Integrate Technology into the Curriculum?”

It appears that students who write on a computer turn in longer and higher-quality assignments than those who compose by hand, even though it's still writing. A middle school principal in Maine (where all middle schoolers are supplied with computers) proclaims that the debate over handwriting is finally over -- all assignments must be keyboarded. You can mourn the passing of handwriting if you must; the kids certainly won't. If they are writing better and more detailed papers, yes, there has been progress. --Marc Prensky

References McHugh, Josh. (2005) Synching Up with the iKid:Connecting to the Twenty-First-Century Student. Edutopia, October. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-digital-learner. Prensky, Marc. (2005) Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom. Edutopia, December. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://www.edutopia.org/adopt-and-adapt. Small, Becky. (2007) Wiki in a K-12 Classroom. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wiki_in_a_K-12_classroom Why Integrate Technology into the Curriculum? The Reasons are Many. Edutopia, (March 16, 2008). Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction.