Class Projects, Teacher Videos, and 21st-Century Skills

I’ve read some interesting blogs and viewed some thoughtful videos this week. I think you’ll find taking the time to look at them worthwhile.

CLASS PROJECTS...

When I read David Warlick’s blog (http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/index.php), I was excited to see some very interesting examples of student and teacher use of digital skills (e.g., distance learning, video, spreadsheets) and Web 2.0 applications (e.g., wikis, social networking, blogs) in the same lessons. Check David’s blog entries from March 23 and March 24, 2007 to read about several teachers and their students who are teaching and learning using today’s tools.

A brief sampling of what I found…

… a grade eight class was delivering reports to a class in a rural part of the province… used Wikispaces for the presentation and the multimedia, including links to video and spread sheet files.

… Chad… posted the information on the class wiki, pointed his students to it and then assigned them to work in teams and invent their own political party. They were required to have a platform, to write speeches, have a mascot and logo, and to present their party to the class, and to utilize all of the vocabulary words and political concepts in the process.

… several of the students created a party web site, using Piczo, which is a social networking site that seems to be favored by youngsters in Canada…

TEACHER VIDEOS...

While I was at David Warlick’s blog, I discovered TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/index.php)… YouTube for teachers!

Teachers, administrators, students, parents, anyone can watch videos on TeacherTube. You can join video groups to network with others who have similar interests. You can save favorite videos or create playlists. You can integrate TeacherTube videos on web sites. When you upload your own videos, you can choose to make them public or private. TeacherTube is a free service.

Some of the videos you might want to check out are…
Survivor: The Middle School Classroom (http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=4bf8ce0ff2ec19b37151&page=3&viewtype=&category=mr),
Technology Fear Factor in Education (http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d9fe611d5a8e90fefdc9&page=2&viewtype=&category=mr),
Learning in Hand: Administration (http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=75530d9583c34fd356ef&page=4&viewtype=&category=mr),
Inspiration Software with Math Instruction (http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c49e5a833517c45d3107&page=2&viewtype=&category=mr),
Make Classroom Posters with Microsoft Excel (http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=a121ce581499d7b70166&page=1&viewtype=&category=mr),
… and the list goes on.


21st-CENTURY SKILLS

At Will Richardson’s blog (http://weblogg-ed.com/), I learned about the Did You Know video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHWTLA8WecI) created by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod. Watch the video… and then ask yourself… and your colleagues… what it tells us about using and preparing our students to use 21st-century skills. There’s not one “correct” answer to that question. This is a topic we all need to discuss.