// Langwitches Blog

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• It’s not about the Tools…It’s about the Skills- Wikis
• It’s not about the Tools…It’s about the Skills- Blogging
• It’s not about the Tools…It’s about the Skills- Podcasting
• It’s not about the Tools…It’s about the Skills- Digital Storytelling
• It’s not about the Tools…It’s about the Skills- Video Conferencing
• It’s not about the Tools…It’s about the Skills- Set of all Five

• Learning about Quest Atlantis | Thinking About Learning
  Quest Atlantis (QA) is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-16, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. Participation in this game is designed to enhance the lives of children while helping them grow into knowledgeable, responsible, and empathetic adults.
  (tags: learning simulation virtualworlds)

• Proofreading
  (tags: interactive spelling editing language_arts proofreading)
• Pretty Graph – Make great charts, plots, presentations online
  Make great graphs and charts easily on the web.

  Publish and print high quality charts instantly.
  Download, share, and email as PDFs and PNGs.
  Impress clients, colleagues and tutors

  (tags: charts visualization graphs tools)
• Beyond The Book Report – Gifted Lesson Plans
  # Make a CD/Soundtrack for the movie with an explanation for each song choice
  # Create a 30-second movie commercial/trailer podcast
  # Make a PowerPoint presentation
  Read on for many more ideas…

  * Why this should be a movie
  * Summary
  * TV series idea
  * Abridged version of the book

  # Design a room that a character would have

  (tags: language_arts book_reports project-ideas)
• Martin J. Gottlieb Day School students use Skype to go around the world | Jacksonville.com
  The brainchild of the school's 21st century learning specialist, Silvia Tolisano said the idea came to her about a year ago. Born in Germany and raised in Argentina, she said her students "are going into a world that doesn't have the same boundaries … [as] when you and I grew up."
  (tags: articles AroundTheWorldWith80Schools skype_in_classroom)

Cross posted on TechLearning Advisor Blog
I believe in sharing. Really I do… I would like to propose a Challenge to Share…for two reasons…

I believe in sharing...

Sharing is defined on Wikipedia as:

Sharing is the joint use of a resource or space.

Reason 1:

Many in the blogger- and Twittersphere are realizing and understanding that their PLN will give them back what they put into it. Sharing resources, ideas, and help is part of something bigger and only contributes to our own learning and growth as educators.

Back in November 2008, I wrote Sharing in Education. Is it changing?

There is no doubt, that we are in the process of changing the culture of sharing in education. The online version of sharing among educators seems to be at the fore front. We are learning about the power as more and more people are joining the network to take but also to give.

Great examples of sharing are Tom Barrett’s collaborative “Interesting Ways” slideshows on Google Docs. They exist because of educators who share their best practices for different types of tools in their classroom. Another example are blogs like Kim Cofino’s Always Learning, Brian Crosby’s Learning is Messy, and Chrissy Hellyer’s TeachingSaggitarian. They are teachers…in the classroom…in the trenches…daily…with students…choosing to share…

Reason 2:

We need to share what we do in the classroom, not only to give other educators fresh ideas and new ways to look at teaching and learning, but also to collectively show that schools and individual classrooms ARE changing and preparing students for a different future.

Just think, what if…  Chris Lehmann and his Science Leadership Academy would have taken the “quiet” approach and do what they are doing WITHOUT sharing their ideas, process and successes. We would not have someone to look up to, we would not have a leader as an example to point to and say: “If they are doing it… it is possible.”

We need to reach out and get “traditional” media involved like the local newspaper and television station to report what is going on in our classrooms. That might be the only way to reach “the rest of them” who are not reading blogs and who are not on twitter. We have to reach out and share examples of projects, learning examples and opportunities with other local schools to allow them to realize that teaching semester long keyboarding lessons to second graders might not be equivalent to bringing in 21st century skills. Sharing what we are doing in the classroom might wake up other schools and make them realize that they no longer can sit still and rest on their laurels of having students prepared the same way for the last 50+ years.

We need to support teachers who want to upgrade their curriculum content and assessments to include 21st Century skills and literacies but are facing reluctant or unsupportive administrators or districts that block tools and their efforts in moving ahead. We need to equip the willing with background data, research, examples, experiences and ammunition that “everyone else is doing this”.

It is a responsibility to share what we are doing in the classroom!

Maybe you have your own reasons for sharing ideas and best practices (feel free to add them by commenting below), but I do hope that you are willing to take my CHALLENGE to SHARE. Take the time to:

• describe a 21st Century learning project you have undertaken with your students
• share anecdotes from the classroom
• take images or video of students in action
• do action research in the classroom to collect data
• conduct a pre- and post assessment
• interview students and or other participants in the project
• share the final product or creation

Document your best practices in a public place (blog, wiki, ning, twitter, website, photo or video sharing sites, podcast etc.), share them at local, national and international conferences, work with your school’s marketing director or your district’s public relations and media coordinator. Do whatever it takes to get the word out that WE ARE PREPARING OUR STUDENTS for the 21st century!

• WordItOut – Transform your text into word clouds!
  Simply enter some text and create your word cloud!

  * Customise many settings
  * Share your word cloud (or keep it secret!)
  * Embed it on your own website

  (tags: wordle visualization generator tagcloud wordcloud)
• Add Students To Your Class Blog So They Can Write Posts | The Edublogger
  Normally when a class blog is initially set up you’ll be responsible for writing posts, and the students respond by writing comments.

  This gives you time to increase your skills while gradually introducing your students to blogging and educating them on appropriate online behaviour.

  (tags: blogging_in_the_classrom tutorials)

I have added a new visual to the “Skill Set” of ” It’s not about the Tools, it’s about the Skills“.

Digital Storytelling Skills

Digital Storytelling Skills

Brian’s TRT Blog picked up one of my blog posts from Educon’s session Taking.Play.Seriously. Brian has only a very short response to this:

So, would more play produce more creativity which would result in higher test scores? Hmmmm………

That “Hmmmm” sparked the following comment from me:

That is exactly what I am pondering as well. How can we have the same assessments (standardized tests) to measure “learning” if we want to encourage creativity? Why would schools/teachers change the way they have taught for years, if they are seeing results in their test scores? Why would curriculum change to prepare students for THEIR future if the assessment of the present will not measure nor value these skills?

All this seems to connect well with the book “Curriculum21“  by Heidi Hayes Jacobs that I am currently reading. Heidi advocates that change growth in schools should start with upgrading assessment. Now this makes sense to me. We can’t ask teachers to change grow in their teaching, but continue to expect them to evaluate students with the same types of assessments as they did 50 years ago.

Wikipedia defines educational assessments as:

the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs.

Since we don’t want/can’t overwhelm teacher by asking them to CHANGE everything at once

Curriculum Decisions

Heidi challenges teachers to a 21st Century Pledge by taking one “traditional” assessment and replacing it with a new kind of assessment. Those new kinds of assessments include:

Documentaries

Podcast

CAD projections

Web sites

E-mail exchanges

Digital music compositions

Webcasts from live sites

Online Journals

Films

Online courses

Video podcasts

Screenplays

Quarterly e-reports

Video conferences

Second Life simulations

Blogs

Note: I am not sure of the difference between an online journal and a blog?

I would add the following to her list of possible assessment replacements:

• Wikis (information depository & collaborative work)
• VocieThreads
• Tutorials

What would YOU add to this list of assessments which could measure more accurately skills of the 21st century?

• Vocabulary Videos and Flash Cards for SAT, ACT and GRE – VocabAhead.com > Home
  VocabAhead Study Room provides a distraction free environment with over 1000 difficult words explained using Vocabulary Videos and Flash Cards. More vocab videos continuously added.
  (tags: vocabulary flashcards SAT)

• Why collaborate?
  Collaborate to express your ideas to an authentic audience because sometimes you don't know what you're thinking until you share it with others.

  Collaborate to have your thinking challenged or validated which might promote open-mindedness.

  Collaborate to listen to others' thinking so you understand other people's perspective and the reasoning for it.

  Read on…

  (tags: collaboration 21stcenturyskills)

• Op-Ed Contributor – Playing to Learn – NYTimes.com
  Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.
  (tags: curriculum articles learning literacy)
• ENGAGEMENT AND EFFORT
  created an effort page (exit ticket) for my students to fill out. As a class, we talked about effort and came up with a 1-5 rubric.

  1-didn't want to be here today
  2-tried sometimes
  3- good effort some of the day
  4- good effort most of the day
  5- great effort all day

  (tags: assessment elementary_school Rubrics)