Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Transform teaching to the 21st century

Ready to transform your teaching to the 21st century? Still hesitant even though more than a decade has passed since we entered this new century? Can we at least take some small steps toward the goal?
Here is a solution- Start with the projects you assign. You know those posters, dioramas and other pseudo creative assignments which occur all too often. Commit to add a 21st century component to any project you assign that requires work at home. Not just using the internet to research but a higher level skill, one that incorporates Web 2.0 tools.
For instance, here's one that was assigned my son last week. This project required a poster board sized neighborhood map in Spanish, complete with streets, schools, stores and houses, drawn out and labeled. Nothing wrong with the project but pretty much a 20th century assignment. How can we turn this into a 21st century assignment? Simple just utilize QR codes. These quick response codes enable more than just streets and stores labeled by name. Now scanning the QR code can reveal pictures and a true history of the area complete with videos. Or for collages, why continue to use poster board? Utilize Glogster to create an interactive Glog or MovieMaker to create a video.
For more resources on 21st century learning check out the other posts on this blog.
21st century teaching requires student engagement through collaboration, communication and creativity. It's definitely time to bring our assignments to that level of engagement also.

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Mr. Gerry Kosater

There are two paths you can choose but there's always time to change the one you choose