links for 2008-05-16

• COLOR IN MOTION
  (tags: colors SmartBoard)
• educational-origami » 21st Century Teacher
  (tags: 21stcenturyskills)
• educational-origami » Virtual Fieldtrips
  Web 2.0 technologies are allowing us to construct our own “virtual field trips”.
  (tags: virtual_fieldtrip)
• Mapwing – Build and Share Virtual Tours for Free
  Mapwing makes it easy to build, share, and explore virtual tours. Use Mapwing to turn your digital photos into virtual tours that include interactive maps, images, and comments. Then, share your virtual tours with friends, clients, or the entire world.
  (tags: digital_literacy digital_storytelling geography mashup virtual_fieldtrip)
• My Experience with epals « Kids and Technology-A natural combination!
  (tags: epals elementary_school)

Day 14: Turn Your Blog Over to Your Readers

Challenge #14 of the 31-Day Comment Challenge will be a first for me.

I am to turn my blog over to the readers. Ask a question and have YOU , the reader write the post through the comments.

I am in the process of developing a "How to Guide for Digital Storytelling for Educators ". See Digital Storytelling Part I , Part II , Part III .

This is part of a grant, I received from FCIS (Florida Council of Independent Schools), so you comment, suggestion or story (with proper acknowledgment) might end up in my upcoming printed version of the Guide, that will be distributed to affiliated schools.

If you have integrated digital storytelling into your teaching, what successes have you observed in your students? What were stumbling blocks or frustrations for you while working on a project? Can you share implemented lesson plans or project ideas? What would you do different the next time?

If you have not ventured out into the digital storytelling world, what is holding you back? What are some questions you have? What would help you get started?

Help me build my post through YOUR comments. Don’t be shy…help me out and click on comment and post!

Technorati Tags: comment08

Day 13: Write a Blog Post Using Comments

Day 13: Write a Blog Post Using Comments

From what I’ve seen so far, during the past two weeks, most of us have expanded our commenting awareness in some amazing ways. We’ve discovered new blogs and are interacting more than we might have in the past, which is one of the great things that happens when we become more intentional about building community through commenting.

One thing I’ve noticed in reviewing people’s blogs is that many of us use our blogs for reflection and learning. Often we do this by responding to a blog post written by another blogger. But we can also do this based on comments.

For today’s task, we’re going to write a blog post that responds to comments. This can be a post that summarizes or reflects on comments we’ve received on our own blogs. I did a version of that here where I wrote a post that summarized reader suggestions for starting a career in a nonprofit. And here’s an example of a post I wrote responding to several comments I received related to a series I wrote on scarcity and abundance thinking. You could also write a post responding to a comment or comments you read at another blog.

This is a great way to keep conversations going because often people’s thoughts can get lost in the comments, but by you elevating them to a blog post, they get more attention and discussion. They also encourage you to reflect more deeply on the comments you receive–maybe allowing you to identify some trends in comments or to challenge something in your thought patterns.

After you write your post, be sure to tag it with “comment08.”

I have read with interest Andrew’s post 21st Century Teachers on Educational Origami. I starred it in my Google Reader and also copy and pasted the link with my initial thoughts into a draft post. That is the way, I help myself remember posts that I want to blog about later. Since I have been extremely busy with year end school stuff and trying to keep up with the Comment Challenge, I have not been able to get to writing this post as fast as I wanted to. The post is well written and organized and I encourage you to read in detail how Andrew spells out characteristics of the 21st Century Educator

Since the post was first published on May 12th, Andrew has received several comments that are worth to take a closer look at and to summarize.

All commenters agree on the changing roles of educators. Some of the commenters are trying to arrange the characteristics from the web above in order of importance:

21st Century teachers are 21st Century learners first

So, it seems that teacher and students of the 21st century are not too different, since BOTH are supposed to thrive to be learners. But a

key difference is that they (the 21st century teacher/educator) must also have a clear vision of the goals, objectives and end points he or she must reach.

Questions, such as what is being done to prepare pre-service teacher, are being asked.

Andrew responds to his comments with :

There is much written about the 21st century learner but very little written about the 21st century teacher who is meant to facilitate and enable all of this learning.
I have seen with my own students that they are very capable of learning and operating the tools, but they often lack the insight (not surprisingly) to apply these tools and technologies to learning.

As the teacher we need to focus on the ways these technology tools will enhance the LEARNING of our students. As the teacher of the teachers (through Professional development workshops and one-on-one time) we need to focus on the importance of how the tools affect learning, and not emphasis the way we can learn these tools.

As a result of the feedback he got on his post, Andrew updates by adding a new characteristics to his original one: The Leader

To continue the conversation and allow others to add and edit some of the points and ideas Andrew has created a wiki page .

Technorati Tags: comment08