// Langwitches Blog

As I am attempting to grasp the magnitude of how to be/become/ grow into a piece of the puzzle that helps start (?)/develop and eventually complete a shift of our schools to better prepare and help students learn “TODAY”. (P.S. I am getting a little tired of the “21st century” label, since we are almost [...]

Why do we so often encounter defensiveness among teachers?
Defensiveness

about the way they have been teaching for years the same subject, the same book, the same curriculum, the same tests, the same way…
towards someone who is willing and ready to help them plan, co-teach, model, mentor, coach…
about “doing” computers
when listening to the difference between computers [...]

Cross posted to Tech & Learning  Advisor Blog

Image by hubertk
It was graduation day for 6th graders at my school a few days ago. WhenI started working at the school, I was teaching these same students (as 6 year olds) Spanish. It was bittersweet to hear them sing “Time of your Life” from Green Day, since [...]

After the success of Skyping in Author and illustrator Mike Artell (from Louisiana) into our sixth grade classes this past February, the fifth grade classes had the opportunity to visit with Jan and Phil Huling (from New Jersey).

The Hulings are the author and illustrator of “Puss in Cowboy Boots”, a remake of the traditional fairy [...]

Cross posted to TechLearning  Advisor blog
Lately my thoughts and efforts are shifting from figuring out how to get educators familiar and comfortable enough to use technology  as just another teaching tool to how to change or facilitate a shift of a school’s culture into a learning community.
I invite you to jump on and take a [...]

Shifting To 21st Century Learning
View more presentations from Silvia Tolisano.

Special thanks to

Kim Cofino and her inspirational presentations http://www.slideshare.net/mscofino/

The 21st Century Classroom
The 21st Century Learner

Professional Development Components for Change created from table found on Educational Origami Wiki
Think about it…Willing to learn vs. waiting to be taught. Based on a Steven Kimmi’s [...]

I have been thinking a lot about what it takes to shift our schools into the 21st century. You hear and read that term “Shift to the 21st century” a lot. In the past few years we have been so focused on integrating technology…maybe we tackled the desire to achieve change from the wrong angle?

Quote [...]

Shifting and changing our schools is also about reflecting and analyzing our individual teaching practice.

They cannot be talk of learning (on students’ part) and growth (on teachers’ part) without reflecting on a lesson or project:

What did I start out with?
What was the learning objective?
What were variables?
What was the outcome?
Successes and pitfalls of the lesson [...]

The more I try to re-focus my thoughts on the struggle of shifting schools and teaching in the 21st century, the more I examine EVERYTHING that has stayed the same in schools. What about classrooms? What about desks in rows? What about teachers at the front of the class? What about homework?

Whether to assign homework [...]

Steven Kimmi, on his blog Experiments in Technology posted Taught Versus Learn, A Distinguishing Factor
Again,  it was a small sentence that caught my eye and I was not able to let it go. Just as Kim Cofino’s quote about “ Using Technology Integration in the classroom is a Mindset, not a skill set“, I [...]