Zaich,+Erin


 * Use the course materials to help you respond to these questions for each Module.**

>> ** Foundation skills are those people come to any type of job already being proficient at, whereas functional skills are unique to the current job a person is performing. ** >> ** Schools need to prepare students for the workforce in general. There can be specific classes as kids get older, but because education needs to be adaptableI think we need to look at the broad picture and think more about the kind of people we want our students to be rather than the unique skill set they might need for a specific profession. For example, I think every person needs to be able to understand the global world, to be able to empathize with others, to be able to collaborate, to be able to apply knowledge, to be able to think out of the box, to be willing to sit with something that is unfinished and unknown, and to also be able to dream and to achieve. In a true 21st century class students would work on problems that directly affect the 21st century so they feel that what they are learning and doing is actually relevant. Because the world is shifting so quickly, education needs to take on a more current perspective of the material we are teaching. While we need project based learning and direct instruction, there needs to be a blended model that infuses both types of instruction with general 21st century skill mastery. We need to involve companies and the community, so we have an innovative education system that is current and interesting, thereby captivating our students. **
 * Module 1 Notes**
 * 1) What skills you think today's students will need to be able to live and work in the 21st Century
 * 2) ** Critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, cross-cultural understanding, career learning, and computing/IT literacy. However, we still need basic foundation skills to be able to understand the higher level thinking skills. A new balance is needed to prepare students for the future between foundational level skills and higher order thinking skills. No longer can anyone get by with one or the other. Additionally, the 21st century skill set is more about abstract application of knowledge and innovation rather than a rote understanding of facts. There needs to be a melding of the way people create and the basic facts that are used as a platform for constructing those creative thoughts. **
 * 3) ** Our economy’s fundamental focus is now on service. We are an international market and are outsourcing product work and are now focusing more on innovation and entrepreneurship. The fuel of our economy, innovation, must transfer to the education population. **
 * 4) How you are preparing your students to gain these skills? If you are not currently teaching: How are educators preparing students to gain these skills?
 * 5) ** Focusing heavily on group work, projects, and more, I decided that this year I wanted to teach my students life long skills rather than making sure that they had all the facts dictated in the standards. I relied greatly on project based learning weaving in content standards throughout the year. In science, I feel that I did this the most, however, I feel that writing and math could have been more focused on the application of knowledge rather than fact learning. Additionally, I also greatly utilized a user centered approach to problem solving as often as possible teaching my students how to interview, to brainstorm, and to prototype. However, I still feel that my curriculum is focusing more on knowing the facts rather than having to find facts to solve a problem. I really want my curriculum to look like: here is a problem and we need to find a solution, what are we going to need to know in order to do this? **
 * 6) What is the difference between ’Foundation Skills" and "Functional Skills"?
 * 1) How well your curriculum and current instructional strategies are helping your students acquire these skill? If your are not currently teaching how well do you think our schools are using instructional strategies to help students acquire these skills
 * 2) ** Building off of question 2, I believe that the district I have taught in is really trying to take on this approach of innovation and application of knowledge. All 5th and 6th grade teachers used Khan academy in math this year, and while I did get to a point of individualizing the math class, I really would have like my classroom to look more like--do modules at home, come to class and review in small groups if needed or do project enrichment. Additionally, the use of a google site and google docs helped my students master and improve their computer skills. Additionally, I utilized imovie a great deal, however I think that the assignments needed to be structured a bit more. Still I feel that my instructional strategies have a long way to go to be truly honed in on preparing students for 21st century learning. I would love to do more innovative project and truly help my students find their passions. Yet I do feel constrained with the standards. How do I innovate and dig into my students passions when I still need to make sure they know this and that? I think that is where I am stuck. **
 * 3) Think about today's students and the potential professions they might go into. Which of these skills might each student need? How can we make sure that all students are prepared with the skills necessary to enter the 21st Century Job Market?
 * 1) What patterns are beginning to emerge between the various resources you’ve been exploring? How do these skills compare with the list you made in question 1?
 * 2) ** The skills everyone is emphasizing are very abstract and learned through action rather than absorption. Students need to have an experiential education where they gain knowledge through experiments, projects and more rather than simply being told information and then given an assignment where they do something with it. School needs to look more like college in a way, where we learn and then we are given a project or a test where we must apply knowledge to a completely different situation. Because I had watched the first video posted, the list I made housed the 7cs of 21st century learning. I see the education shift as follows: **
 * ** Application of knowledge trumps facts since Google is our encyclopedia and we seem to never be without it since we are a plugged in culture. **
 * ** Innovation and creativity are the new memorization and fact regurgitation. **
 * ** Collaboration is the new cubicle. **
 * ** Tables are the new desk **
 * ** Design thinking and brainstorming are the new worksheets. **
 * ** Action is the new listening skill. **
 * ** Solving is the new question. **
 * ** Good questions are the new good answers. **
 * ** Adaptation is the new textbook. **

>> Start with the learner >> Each individual has their own learning objectives >> Variety of materials with which those objectives can be met >> Learner can select appropriate technology and resources to advance learning >> Teachers must be able to create independent learners who have the ability to self monitor, progress and reflect on their own learning >> There needs to be a flip from the focus on the teacher delivering the information to the student to the student delivering and showing mastery of knowledge to the teacher >> Extended learning opportunities are always made available and enrichment is the norm not the exception due to time >> Focus needs to change from standards based teaching to life long knowledge based teaching >> Overall it is learner driven and teacher is the facilitator of learning, but must go through a phase of development of this in the classroom >> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">The room must be redesigned in order to make learner centered education possible. It needs to be flexible, blended, community based, and have grat access to tools and resources >> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Teacher address CCSS but does not focus solely on the mastery of these >> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;"><range type="comment" id="368962">Students must have voice and choice and own their own learning. >> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Students need to understand why they are learning what they are > > > [] > ** Effective Global Collaborators: ** __** http://www.personalizelearning.com/search/label/21st%20Century%20Learning **__ __** https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/the-flipped-classroom-model-a-full-picture/ **__
 * Module 2 Notes**
 * 1) How can we make personalized learning a part of our schools and classrooms?
 * __**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">http://www.personalizelearning.com/p/chart.html **__
 * 1) How do we help our students become real learners?
 * 2) __** http://www.personalizelearning.com/p/chart.html **__
 * Connect with their interests, passions and aspirations
 * Design own learning goals
 * Make them aware of how they learn, what their strengths and weaknesses are and then tap into their passions and interests in order to show their talents
 * Encourage the students to participate in designing their own learning
 * Teach students how to network with each other, experts, teachers, professionals and more so that they see the stage of learning and can take an active role in their own learning in real time because they see the value of it
 * Move through the stages of teacher created learning, student and teacher created learning, and finally student driven learning that capitalizes on their passions thus maximizing buy in and leaning gain
 * Teach them the skills of note taking, reading, researching, brainstorming, organizing, storytelling, communicating, collaborating, and math
 * 1) What is/should be the role of assessment in student learning? How can we improve upon our assessment practices in order to really help all students be engaged, life-long learners?
 * 2) http://www.personalizelearning.com/p/chart.html
 * <range type="comment" id="654198">Assessment should be a demonstaration of mastery and application
 * Summative
 * Assessment as learning
 * 1) []
 * If a classroom is flipped then the learning and the assessment happen at home.
 * During the at home assessment phase, students would be able to demonstrate what they have learned and apply it in an individualized way. This way, testing goes beyond simply restating the material and rather moves to application which is much higher on Bloom’s taxonomy of learning.
 * Students could have the task of blogging about their learning.
 * Site dictating and describing many ways of students sharing assessment:
 * 1) What is the role of e-learning, and how will/isl this change(ing) the educational paradigm?
 * According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning, E-learning is: “E-learning is the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning,[|virtual education] opportunities and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. It can be self-paced or instructor-led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio.”
 * According to edxonline: “EdX will build on both universities’ experience in offering online instructional content. The technological platform recently established by MITx, which will serve as the foundation for the new learning system, was designed to offer online versions of MIT courses featuring video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate feedback, student-ranked questions and answers, online laboratories, and student paced learning. Certificates of mastery will be available for those motivated and able to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material.”
 * Edx and online education I think is amazing. With the ability to offer free education, people are able to learn things they would not normally have the opportunity to. Having big name institutions like Harvard and MIT participating adds to the validity and hopefully to the success. However, with edx learning students must be incredibly self motivated and interested in the material because it is remote. <range type="comment" id="14171">Accountability of completion is something to think about, how will that work? Also, is this kind of learning really only benefiting those students who are motivated and want to work at their own pace?
 * 1) How do your students compare with the 21st Century learners described in t
 * Similar for sure. I think that students learn differently due to being a digital native. They expect fun, instant and engaging content 24/7. If they don’t want to do it, they don’t want to have to do it which tends to pose a problem in school. I still haven’t figured out my personal stance on this either. Do I believe that everything kids do should always have to be fun and engaging? Still, even in the 21st century we have to do things that we don’t want to do.
 * The article states that, “Digital students are goal oriented and able to pursue multiple outcomes at the same time.” By this statement, it would appear that we have on our hands an entire generation of very determined students who can self motivate and multitask. While I for sure had a great deal of students like this (2 young novelists on my hands, talented pianists and more) I think that some are not, I don’t think all are goal oriented and many still need explicit instruction in what to do and when to do it. I think that students, in accordance with the article, learn differently and absorb information information in entirely different ways from previous generations.
 * There is a constant connecteness between students and therefore they also expect that you are always connected via email. I am loving the situation in the article, where the kids created a game with each other without ever meeting while living in different countries. I wish this was something I could incorporate more in my teaching.
 * We for sure need to meet kids where they are and move into a role that more resembles a college course facilitator rather than a deliverer of information (that is Google’s role now). We need to teach kids how to find and to synthesize information.
 * 1) HotChalk’s article on 21st Century Learners ? If you are not a teacher: How do you as a student or your children compare with the 21 Century learners described in this article?
 * Article described my students quite well. I really think I need to take on more of a role of facilitating and tap into the resources that they bring to me while still maintaining my own educational philosophy which I think is important to do. Please see above as well, questions seem similar.
 * 1) To what extent to you see your students (or your children, or yourself as a student) possessing the qualities shown on thegraphic on the wiki for the International School in Bangkok? If you see any gaps, what do you consider the reason for these gaps, and how might educators help students gain these skills and qualities?
 * 2) **__ http://isb21.wikispaces.com/21st+Century+Learner __**
 * 3) //** My students possess the following qualities: **//
 * As I read over the qualities, while I feel they possess them, I think that my students are not fully at the level of the 21st century learner that is represented by the quality statements on the wiki. My students are incredibly creative in projects they create, narratives they write, and more. In some ways they are open minded and eat up new and exciting information. I would say the skill I most focused on last year was collaboration and I do see my students possessing amazing qualities centered around the sharing of ideas and the delegation of roles. My students are efficient, but at the same time very distracted and I think their efficiency would increase if the engagement was deepened. All in all, while I feel I am preparing 21st century learners, I think that I could do a much better job encouraging creative, inquisitive, open minded, tenacious, flexible, collaborative, efficient and reflective students.
 * //** Reason for gaps **//
 * <range type="comment" id="916507">My students could be more reflective with their learning and be able to understand the values of process over the final product. I think that we have so much to cover as teachers, that there just isn’t enough time to dedicate to truly giving kids the time they need to grasp the value of process. Additionally, I think the fast paced nature of our society pulls us away from slowing down to understand our steps to get to the end rather than only focusing on making it to the end. Next, students need to be experts in understanding their own learning as the wiki states. While I do think that my students know themselves as learners, I don't think that I give them enough space to dedicate a solid amount of time to learning who they are. If I did this, it would enable them to better express to me what I can do to improve their learning that falls in line with how they learn as best for them. Also, I would really like my students to be able to ask questions of their learning that are more below the surface. I want them to be owners of their education and confident in who they are. This would be more of a reality if the types of projects I did modeled an open ended approach that required an application of knowledge. I think where I get stuck is how to I create these projects when I need my students to know information before starting them? If I want them to inquire about certain information, how do I structure the project to push them in that direction? Reading on, I love the following statement: “Understand that learners are flexible, adaptable, and effective in using tools that generate and respond to change” because I would love to be able to truly give the gift of flexibility and adaptability to my students as I see this as an incredibly useful tool in life.
 * 1) To what extent are you, your children or your students Effective Learners, Effective Communicators, and Effective Global Collaborators.?
 * 2) ** http://isb21.wikispaces.com/Effective+Learners **
 * My students are effective learners in the following ways:
 * 1) Learning new information is a daily occurrence. Students are comfortable when a new technology is introduced as they are digital natives and enjoy learning digital tools.
 * 2) I’m not sure that my students are able to evaluate information effectively for its authenticity. One thing I think needs more emphasis on in school is the learning of how to evaluate information on the internet. I do think that students are too willing to believe what they see online.
 * 3) My students are motivated to learn how to better understand the world around them through learning about global issues
 * 4) At the end of some projects, my students strive to reflect on their learning and see how they as students have grown, however, I do not think they understand specifically the type of learner they are. According to the wiki, learning how one learns is essential to being an owner of one’s own learning. I do not think this is something I have explicitly taught.
 * ** Effective Communicators **
 * 1) Throughout the year, my students applied critical thinking skills to a variety of projects. Additionally, they were given opportunities to participate in group collaboration that necessitated an “out of the box” approach to problem solving.
 * 2) <range type="comment" id="233475">This was a challenging year for students because many did not learn how to time manage as well as I would have hoped. That being said, there were a few long term projects assigned in order to aid students in mastering this skill and learning how to pace themselves.
 * 3) THroughout the year we discussed how to communicate in a variety of situations and using various mediums. For example, students learned the difference between a text message and an email, how to ask for help, and how to communicate to peers about a topic. We also heavily discussed how to resolve a conflict in a positive way using “I” statements.
 * 4) Public speaking was a large part of our curriculum. Students learned how to prepare a speech with note cards and the important aspects of communicating ideas verbal and how that differs from written language.
 * My students learned about issues facing our global world as a way to gain an understanding of their place in a very connected world. Through this course students learned about poverty, education around the globe, child soldiers, water and sanitation. This allowed them to understand how we are all experiencing a different situation on the surface, but face many of the same issues in life.
 * Our school supported Free the Children, and through the organization students learned about helping those in other countries through collaboration and bonding.
 * Through group work students were able to collaborate with each other, learning how to take on a variety of roles.
 * 1) To what extent is your school (or your children's school) and classroom meeting these needs?
 * I don’t think that our school or community is emphasizing the reflective quality of an effective learner as well as the International School in Bangkok is. <range type="comment" id="12332">For me, I would really love to see my students more aware of how they learn and what works best for them in the classroom. During their learning, students need to be more able to reflect and to analyze the validity of the information they are using in school. While I do believe our school and community is incredibly dedicated to the technology side of learning in the 21st century, I really like how this website explicitly describes the importance of reflecting on the information gathering experience. My students know how to use technology to find information, but I think they could learn better how to find the information on the internet that effectively helps them answer their problems. Additionally, it would be incredible if the district were more focused on project based learning. While I see it happening on a classroom level, I would love to see it happen on a much greater scale that would then hold teachers to the standard of utilizing a very effective approach to teaching. Finally, it would be neat if the district partnered with a district somewhere else, that could allow students to do projects with those in another country.
 * 1) How might you rethink your classroom to make it a 21st Century classroom? What are the barriers you face to making your class a 21st Century learning environment? If you are not currently teaching how should classrooms be re-thought?
 * I loved the last video. Pulling out of it, what struck me the most is the idea of experiential learning that is focused on collaboration and a shared learning environment. What an amazing lesson, reading the diary of Anne Frank in an intensely created environment to mirror that mirrors that of what she would have experienced while writing it. That lesson that he describes is what I would love my teaching to look like, but I simply am unsure of how to get it to that point. As professor Stephen Heppell states, we are in a learning age and I think that due to the digital nature of our students lives, learning needs.
 * Lackney describes the design studio as, “A type of professional education, traditional in schools of architecture, in which students undertake a design project under the supervision of a master designer. Its setting is the loft-like studio space in which anywhere from twelve to as many as twenty students arrange their own drawing tables, papers, books, pictures, drawings and models. In this space, students spend much of their working lives, at times talking together, but mostly engaged in private, parallel pursuits of the common design task (quoting Schon, 1983).”
 * In 2006, John Seely Brown published a short but hard-hitting article, “Exploring the edge: New Learning Environments for the 21st Century” on the architectural studio model as a foundation for current trends in learning. He explains: “In the architecture studio, for example, all work in progress is made public. As a consequence, every student can see what every other student is doing; every student witnesses the strategies that others use to develop their designs. And there is public critique, typically by the master and perhaps several outside practitioners. The students not only hear each other’s critiques, but because they were in some sense peripheral participants in the evolution of each other’s work, they also have a moderately nuanced understanding of the design choices and constraints that led to the final result … If you look at the learning outcomes for the architecture studio and Professor Belcher’s physics classes, it is evident that in both environments, students move from ‘learning about’ something to ‘learning to be’ something—a crucial distinction.”
 * ** <range type="comment" id="531048">Flipped classroom model **
 * Students listen to instruction/lecture at home, do enrichment, collaboration, and problem solving in classroom
 * Content becomes more easily controlled by learner because they can move at their own pace at home
 * Students could potentially progress at own pace
 * There could be a global connective piece to it where students are able to work with students in other countries on a project
 * Students can control the media with which they digest information by using vidoe ie. pause, fast forward and rewind.
 * In the classroom kids would: art activities, community projects, experiments, presentations, simulations, personalized work
 * At home to learn content: video lectures, audio lecture, utilize website, online forums
 * At home to reflect: tests, audio/visual reflections, blogs,


 * Module 3 Notes**
 * 1) List how your school and classroom environments support 21st Century learning outcomes. If you are not teaching, think about your school experience of the your children's school. Consider:
 * Collaboration with staff at staff meetings sharing of best practices
 * Khan academy trainings with district
 * Mini CEO
 * Laptops at school
 * Tables not desks
 * Group work focus
 * Limited face to face online interaction
 * Lunch time speakers for career learning
 * STEM period once a week
 * Innovation focused
 * Design thinking
 * Experiential learning
 * the extent to which faculty at your school collaborate, share best practices and integrate 21st century skills into classroom practice
 * students learn in relevant, real world 21st century contexts such as project-based and applied learning experiences
 * students experience equitable access to quality learning tools, technologies and resources
 * to what extent architectural design of your classroom creates space for for group, team and individual learning
 * to what extent you provide opportunities for both face to face and online interaction with community members and experts in their field for your students
 * to what extent does your school and classroom reflect the 21st Century Learning environment

> > Not enough. I think we still view teachers as specializing in their own area and not drifting over into others. We still have science here, math here, etc. The difficulty with making sure that school is incredibly interdisciplinary is that it takes care and attention. Overlap as of now is not intentional. > ** When I think of interdisciplinary, I kind of match various subjects in my mind: writing can cross into all, technology into all, current print media into all, math and science pair nicely, social studies and writing can pair, but we could also think about social studies and science (ie. what science is being discovered during such and such a time period). ** > > ** As a teacher who is striving to grow in the 21st century, I still need to understand what I am trying to do simply as a teacher. Breaking it down I see it as thus: ** > > ** How do I teach using technologies my students know and should know in ways that promote open ended problem solving in collaborative groups? ** > > ** Ok that I get and I understand. Basically, I feel that I need to tackle more technology tools to better my teaching. Hence why I am participating in the MERIT program. I want to integrate the following tools into my teaching: edmodo, twitter, blogging, open ended projects, and all those other sites that I don’t even know exist. Oh wait, how do I do all of that? ** > > ** <range type="comment" id="823729">It seems that this question is hitting at an overwhelming part of my heart. I want to be innovative, creative and tech focused, but how do I do that when it is hard to find the information, when it is hard to figure out how to create that project that involves figuring out how to clean up an oil spill, while skyping with people on an oil rig in the gulf of mexico, tweeting the findings, and having guest speakers review the projects while kids blog about their scientific understanding as a way to blend science and writing. Oh wait, I forgot that I have a family and that my husband loves me, oh and that I have a weekend that really should be spent doing fun things for me so that I can dedicate my full self to my kids during the week. I am feeling like I have to be super teacher using super amazing technologies to work with my kids in my classroom using the most innovative approaches. And by the way, the success of the future generations rests on your shoulders. Did we mention we have to pay you less as well? Great! Glad you are so passionate and have figured out how to add additional hours to your day. **
 * Module 4 Notes**
 * 1) In what ways are your assuring that the 21st century skills taught discretely in the context of core subjects Is your curriculum interdisciplinary? If you are a middle or high school teacher how can you or do you collaborate with teachers in other departments to create multidisciplinary projects?
 * ** While it seems simple the easiest way for me to do this is through collaborative group work. For example, this year in science I made it my goal to use group projects as my way of checking for understanding of topics. By doing this, I was emphasizing the necessity of learning how to work with others, to use the information they learned to do something, and the fact that I’d much rather them be creative with showing me they understood what they learned versus being able to tell me the 6 major types of volcanoes. Additionally, I like that in language arts I have used current event reading to highlight how to read current media, public speak, and summarize one’s thoughts. In math by utilizing Khan academy, I was able to experiment with a flipped classroom, making videos lectures for my students, individualizing learning, having kids work on open ended projects, application of material, and more. While it may seem I did a great deal in math, I would have liked to do more because I felt that there was still a lot of worksheets and there could have been a deeper emphasis on real world projects. Sometimes I think I separate 21st century skills out of what I am already doing, but my students still use skills listed all the time. Even though we as teachers seem to always feel there is more we can do, I think that there is a great deal already built in there are just some major changes that need to be made to the foundation. It is the how we teach that needs to change not necessarily the what. For example, in writing, kids still need to know how to write. They need to understand how to compare books, to structure and essay etc. even though they are more comfortable texting and blogging. Academics doesn’t always mirror the exact same way of communication that happens in social life. I agree that social media needs to be utilized more, but maybe it can be utilized in a way that still supports some of the formal types of academics. Because my curriculum will be changing next year and I will be on a new team, it will be interesting to see how I’ll share 21st century skill teaching. Many of the general 21st century skills are not hard to make sure we are teaching, but it is the more ambiguous ones that take more care and tenacity. **
 * 1) How does your curriculum focus on providing opportunities for applying 21st century skills across content areas and for a competency-based approach to learning?
 * 2) ** Honestly I don’t think we’ve made this a focus yet. While our district is pushing innovation and individual teachers are doing it, I feel the curriculum is lagging.<range type="comment" id="681340"> But I might be using that as an excuse since I do believe that content can stay somewhat the same but that the way in which we presen it needs to alter. For example, the empathy and elaboration unit where students take on the characteristics of a character in a novel and create a fan fiction piece around that is the same as the narrative writing story I did this year where my students had to look at a picture and create a story around it. What I failed to do though, was add in the social media aspects. What I should have done was had a website created where students could have posted their narratives, commented on others, added in details, photos and more. I am shocked by how similar the empathy and elaboration unit mirrors design thinking. At the seminar I took at Stanford, we talked heavily about how to empathize with characters in novels, think about what they need and move forward in our creation of units surrounding this. I love the twitter aspect! See I just don’t think of these things : ( **
 * 1) What instructional strategies do you use to enable innovative learning methods that integrate the use of supportive technologies such as inquiry-based, project-based and problem-based approaches as well as promote higher order thinking skill?
 * 2) ** To enable innovative learning methods that rely upon technologies and teach higher order thinking... wait what?!? What else do I need to do? What other ways do I need to strive for innovation? **
 * 1) How do you encourage the integration of community resources beyond school walls?
 * 2) How can you better integrate 21st Century skills into your curriculum. I f you are not currently teaching answer this from the point of view of your children's school or your experience as a college student.

> ** (Source: <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]  ** > ** Other tech resources in my mind: ** > The list could go on and on and that is what is so amazing and so intimidating about technology.
 * Module 5 Notes**
 * 1) What are the best uses of technology to promote student learning in a 21st Century Classroom? ** Technology can be used in a variety of ways to promote and teach 21st century skills. I think the following summary is a great explanation of ways to use technology to promote student learning: **
 * 2) ** Then we started to understand that it was never about the tools, but about the skills teachers and students would acquire when using these tools. Skill Set: **
 * ** we blog to teach and learn about writing, communication, networking, presentation, publishing, commenting, reflection, organization and collaboration skills. Blogging is about Digital Citizenship, Media Literacy, Information Literacy and Global Awareness. **
 * ** we use wikis to understand about copyright, evaluation and analysis of Information, collective knowledge and new writing genres. **
 * ** we skype in order to expose and connect teachers and students locally and globally to peers, experts, eyewitnesses. We become more fluent in networking and and information literacies, speaking, listening and presentation skills are honed. **
 * ** we teach bookmarking skills to help teachers and students cope with the exponentially increasing information available. Finding, evaluating, analyzing, tagging, categorizing, organizing, connecting and remixing of information are just some of the skills necessary for that **
 * ** we podcast (audio and video) to allow students to express themselves and their knowledge in more than the written form. We incorporate storytelling in order to give students multimedia skills as well as expose them to visual literacy and information literacy. **
 * ** we tweet to give real time blow by blows of our learning. We become more fluent and efficient in describing our thoughts relating to literature, to science, to math, etc. **
 * ** we use google docs, powerpoints, and more to stay connected, to collaborate, to share and to save. **
 * ** we use discussion boards to communicate with others about our learning **
 * ** we use voicethread to create digital stories so that we can share them with a broader audience than only our teacher. **
 * ** we use khan academy to learn math in a fun and interactive and digital way **
 * 1) What strategies can teachers use to assure their students are acquiring the 21st Century skills necessary for their future?
 * Project based learning, inquiry based learning and problem based learning are all great ways to insure that skills are being taught since they are embedded in the philosophy of the style of teaching. Additionally, I think that thinking about what your students bring to the classroom as far as their understanding of technology is vital to keeping students engaged and thus should incorporate them into the teaching strategies.

>> >> Increase the rigor for teachers >> Must create a culture of learning >> Need more open spaces and collaborative areas >> Focus on the encouragement of education and knowledge not only teacher giving information >> >>
 * Module 6 Notes**
 * 1) What aspects of Finland's educational model work in the United States?
 * 2) Teachers having masters degrees would work in both places
 * 3) A lot of teachers could be able to choose their curriculum if we wanted.
 * 4) Encourage creativity and innovation
 * 5) Use technology
 * 1) How can we best reshape education so that all students gain the skills they need to live and work in the 21st Century?
 * 2) Trusting children more
 * 3) More emphasis on the whole child rather than only a part
 * 4) Encourage creativity and innovation