If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.
You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!
You know what the iGeneration looks like: Inheriting a world with almost universal access to the Internet, iGeners are almost universally plugged in. Ear buds hang from backpacks and cell phones are stuffed into every pocket. Instant communication has replaced listening to messages, streaming video has replaced waiting for television shows to start, Xboxes have replaced Ataris, digital images have replaced negatives, and high speed connections have replaced dial-up modems.
In this presentation, sixth grade classroom teacher and technology expert Bill Ferriter will help participants in the NC-ACTE Spring Conference to think through just what this hyper-connected generation needs to learn today in order to be successful tomorrow.
Working with the people at your table, brainstorm a list of the knowledge and skills that you think we should be teaching today's students. Then, choose a scribe to record your thinking on this shared Google Doc.
Participants in that conversation are encouraged to submit questions---both before and during the April 15th session---for Bill in this Google Moderator forum. Participants are also encouraged to review the questions that have already been submitted and vote on those that they'd most like to see Bill address in his presentation. Submitting and voting on questions---in advance and during the April 15th presentation---will help Bill to tailor his presentation to the interests and needs of the NC-ACTE Spring Conference audience.
For Bill, no skill is more important for students to master than the ability to interact in collaborative conversations with one another. Collaborative conversations allow students to polish their own thinking and to learn to give constructive feedback to others. Collaborative conversations also provide opportunities for students to differentiate their own learning by finding strands of conversation that resonate with their own interests. Each of the conversations spotlighted above are extensions of conversations that Bill's students started in class.
Bill also thinks that it is important for students to learn how to use images and video to persuade audiences. While written persuasion will always remain important, visual persuasion is an increasingly common tool used by individuals who are trying to gain influence. This link connects to a sample of a video made by Bill's students that is designed to force people to think about global poverty.
Wikis are one of the Web 2.0 tools that many teachers have embraced because they are approachable and allow common school-based projects to be extended into online homes. For Bill, wikis are the perfect place for kids to practice collaborative production skills like managing a shared project, assigning tasks, meeting deadlines. In this project, Bill's students worked in groups of 5 to create information pages on alternative energy sources that were designed to influence the residents and senior leadership of North Carolina. Be sure to explore the Project Directions and For Teachers links for more information on how to structure successful wiki projects.
Bill also believes that teaching students to manage information means teaching students to use social bookmarking and shared annotation services. While it is a skill that his sixth graders sometimes struggle to master, it is a skill that most teachers will see value in immediately because it aligns with the kinds of practices that are used in the majority of today's classrooms already. This link connects to a collection of resources that Bill has developed for teachers interested in trying to make social bookmarking and shared annotation work in their classrooms.
Additional Resources
Participants in today's session may find the following additional resources interesting and/or valuable.
Are We REALLY Preparing Students for the Global Economy?
In this blog post, Bill examines the dissonance between the common claim that schools must prepare students for a global economy and the test-driven, standardized curricula reality that is the result of today's educational policies.
While the vast majority of tech-driven teachers have embraced the central idea that making global connections in digital spaces is important, Dina Strasser---one of Bill's favorite digital peers---worries that our push to use digital tools to connect beyond local borders is harming communities. In this post, Bill responds to Dina's concerns.
This post from Bill's blog is designed to be a summary of his comments from today's NC-ACTE session that participants can refer back to at a later date.
The planning documents included in this post from Bill's blog are designed to help teachers and schools to carefully plan their technology integration efforts. Particularly valuable to individual teachers is this essential skills check, which allows teams to think through the kinds of specific skills that their students should be mastering in order to succeed in tomorrow's world.
Bill's Blog Entries on Teaching and Learning in a Web 2.0 World
Because learning in a digital age is a personal passion of Bill's, he's CONSTANTLY writing about teaching with technology on his blog. This link connects to the complete collection of his Web 2.0 entries.
In 2010, Bill's technology book---titled Teaching the iGeneration----was published by Solution Tree Press. This link connects to the book's product page on the Solution Tree website. What makes it valuable to session participants is that over 70 handouts designed to structure meaningful learning experiences are available for free download.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.