Unlearning - Education 21st Century Style
School2.0 Advocacy
Tools for 21st Centuy Literacy
No single application out there more completely encourages the development of ISTE Profiles of the 21st C learner than Scratch. It is both broad and deep as well as being very flexible. From grade 3 students creating multi-player games and short animations to grade 12's producing interactive stories, games and educational activities to give others a better understanding of the true values of Arab culture and religion. Student engagement is fantastic, and key to true intrinsic motivation, students become more absorbed by what they are doing than how they are doing. The architecture also heavily encourages students to practice the create-share-modify habits of 21C digital citizenship.
Close behind Scratch in these abilities is Google Sketchup. I've also used this across multiple grades. 2-12. But in the spirit of lifelong learning I was able to use this similarly deep, broad and accessible 3D modelling app to create a detailed rendering of a major remodelling we had done back home while we were teaching in Kuwait. We sent multiple perspectives of the final rendering back to the project manager and hoped for the best. It was an extremely validating and surreal experience to walk back into our house in July and see our plans replicated pefectly.
I've had grade 3's use Sketchup to create 3D representations of their neighborhoods, grade 5's, their houses, and grade 11's and 12's concept models of products and habitats that will limit pollution and increase self-sustainablility... There are no limits. My next plan is to have students create models of major landmarks here in Belgrade and publish them to Google Earth.
And that leads nicely into my 3rd favourite app/platform, Google Earth. If you have decent bandwidth you can use Google Earth to create a profound understanding of place, time, and self. Google Earth and Maps can be used by history and literature students to display settings, locations of events and movement of people and characters and share it with an audience... also quite limitless in its scope.
Next on the list would be to have students of all ages learn to manage Firefox. As we move from the whole computer as a platform for communication, creativity, communication, and collaboration to the web as a platform, we need to make sure students (and teachers) are fully aware of what is "under the hood" in this open source browser. Not just an awareness of the plethora of Web2.0 applications which are the future of ICT as we know it, but the addons (extensions that add functionality) that make Firefox the current web portal of choice.
Here at ISB we are beginning the process of having students from grade 3 up create gmail accounts to access Google Suite and the world of online collaboration, organization... for both students, staff and admin. We Googlefied our last school, but will need more "buy in" before we do it here. Although we had some friction at the beginnng of this process in Kuwait from staff, the students were able to teach the teachers how to use the suite to increase all levels of productivity. I'm new to Moodle (and can see its incredible potential), but am interested to see if they will blend well together.
I would also encourage students to not only use wikis, but develop and join social networks that focus on varying issues authentic to their education across all subjects and personal interests. I know some schools do not allow for this, however I think it is important we adapt our policies, practices, and procedures to the meet these opportunities than to rob students of meaningful and engaging tools that stumulate student growth. My current network of choice is Ning.
As you can probably imagine, these approaches to learning develop skills vital to 21st C Literacy (ICT), namely; the ability to register accounts; learn the tools, language, and applications of Web2.0 and Free and Open software; source applicable apps for varying tasks (and be able to gauge their potential and pitfalls quickly); transfer these skills between environments; not be clouded by brand loyalty but with evidence and judgement be prepared to switch to the next best thing... If something better than Firefox or Google or Scratch come along, I'll be ready to shift. There has been a lot of change in the past 2 years, there is no reason to believe there won't be more over the next 2.
Close behind Scratch in these abilities is Google Sketchup. I've also used this across multiple grades. 2-12. But in the spirit of lifelong learning I was able to use this similarly deep, broad and accessible 3D modelling app to create a detailed rendering of a major remodelling we had done back home while we were teaching in Kuwait. We sent multiple perspectives of the final rendering back to the project manager and hoped for the best. It was an extremely validating and surreal experience to walk back into our house in July and see our plans replicated pefectly.
I've had grade 3's use Sketchup to create 3D representations of their neighborhoods, grade 5's, their houses, and grade 11's and 12's concept models of products and habitats that will limit pollution and increase self-sustainablility... There are no limits. My next plan is to have students create models of major landmarks here in Belgrade and publish them to Google Earth.
And that leads nicely into my 3rd favourite app/platform, Google Earth. If you have decent bandwidth you can use Google Earth to create a profound understanding of place, time, and self. Google Earth and Maps can be used by history and literature students to display settings, locations of events and movement of people and characters and share it with an audience... also quite limitless in its scope.
Next on the list would be to have students of all ages learn to manage Firefox. As we move from the whole computer as a platform for communication, creativity, communication, and collaboration to the web as a platform, we need to make sure students (and teachers) are fully aware of what is "under the hood" in this open source browser. Not just an awareness of the plethora of Web2.0 applications which are the future of ICT as we know it, but the addons (extensions that add functionality) that make Firefox the current web portal of choice.
Here at ISB we are beginning the process of having students from grade 3 up create gmail accounts to access Google Suite and the world of online collaboration, organization... for both students, staff and admin. We Googlefied our last school, but will need more "buy in" before we do it here. Although we had some friction at the beginnng of this process in Kuwait from staff, the students were able to teach the teachers how to use the suite to increase all levels of productivity. I'm new to Moodle (and can see its incredible potential), but am interested to see if they will blend well together.
I would also encourage students to not only use wikis, but develop and join social networks that focus on varying issues authentic to their education across all subjects and personal interests. I know some schools do not allow for this, however I think it is important we adapt our policies, practices, and procedures to the meet these opportunities than to rob students of meaningful and engaging tools that stumulate student growth. My current network of choice is Ning.
As you can probably imagine, these approaches to learning develop skills vital to 21st C Literacy (ICT), namely; the ability to register accounts; learn the tools, language, and applications of Web2.0 and Free and Open software; source applicable apps for varying tasks (and be able to gauge their potential and pitfalls quickly); transfer these skills between environments; not be clouded by brand loyalty but with evidence and judgement be prepared to switch to the next best thing... If something better than Firefox or Google or Scratch come along, I'll be ready to shift. There has been a lot of change in the past 2 years, there is no reason to believe there won't be more over the next 2.
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