There are a couple tools that every teacher / student should have access to in order to deliver / experience the 21st Century Education. I spoke about this at the TIES 2009 Conference in December and the more I think about it, the more important I think they are to education today.

Projector / Internet /Interactive Whiteboard in the Classroom

I’d add to this an interactive whiteboard, but bare minimum you need a way to project and create a visual classroom. This idea / requirement isn’t new so I’m not going to spend much time talking about it.

Moodle

If you have a way to collect and organize the electronic information for your students, everyone is better off. Moodle creates that extra layer of classroom tooling that makes it better than a web site. From a systemic perspective, you have a really great way of sharing materials between teachers. It spread like wildfire in my school, because the early adopters could give others what they’d created. Better than some of the social networking / web 2.0 tools out there as we can package and share between classrooms and schools. I like the idea of Ning, but it really isn’t the complete classroom tool that Moodle is for everyone.

Over the next couple days I’ll add to the list and probably talk more about the power of each tool (IWB, Moodle, Google Apps, itouch, Podcast Server, Screen Capture Software). Let me know what you think, and what 6 are on your list.

Using Jing to do a screen capture
Smartboard to allow you to write on the screen
Moodle to distribute the files

The classroom really changes, technology makes the impact on student achievement we thought it should when we started this venture

Conference Description

Marc Johnson brings up a really really good point.

School districts that are blocking You Tube are missing Obama’s information, being published ONLY on You Tube. There seems to be more and more information that is published on you tube only. Yes, I realize the crap that is shared, yet can’t we move past it and see the good instead?

I was at a college today, walking back from lunch, found it hard to pass up this sign. Really? 2008 and we have a room where we do word processing? A room?

And upstairs was a conference about eLearning, ironic.

Michael Wesch was the keynote speaker at the eLearning Summit.

It was quite a treat to listen to him talk for an hour, and then again at a break out session.

He talked about…user generated content, filtering, organization, distribution, commentary and ratings.

What a great way of breaking down web 2.0 into what it means in terms of…education, life, the future, people, and culture.

His kids commented that 1/2 don’t like school, but all like learning.  What could we do with that as we move forward?  If we had the mindset that kids LIKE to learn, how could that change the way we look at our classrooms, education system, and lives?

Presentation Files and Notes from The Minnesota E-Learning Summit

How would 21st Century Learners react if they were able to complete assessments, participate in class discussions, get notes from the class they missed this morning, view the video shared in class – all at home 24/7. Blending online learning with traditional courses changes our roles as teachers. How do teachers adjust their courses and how quickly can a system integrate this change? Eden Prairie High School, a large suburban high school, implemented Moodle, an Open Source online learning environment, at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year. See how it has impacted classroom instruction, professional development, class time, support, and the student experience.

Lots was said, or at least talked about regarding web 2.0

I agree with Tim Wilson when he referenced the conference being very web 1.0, and i’m not all that sure it isn’t because the schools most people come from haven’t figured out how to support blogs, wiki’s, podcasting etc.  Yes, there are a few of us out there doing crazy things like this on our own, but we aren’t part of a system that has got this supported yet.  I know we haven’t gotten it figured out at EP Schools. 

At the same time, I’m not sure what the reason to do it is…yet.  I didn’t see any conference sessions talking about what test threads, standards, student outcomes they were addressing when using web 2.0, it feels like a good idea, one we need to explore, but way too undercooked to eat at this point.

To that end, off to work on a list of things that might be better done in a classroom with web 2.0 tools.

Milt Dougherty, our keynote from the TIES 2006 Conference reminded me of the tools we all use and ban from our kids hands during the learning part of the day…

• cell phones
• pda’s
  not so much ban them, as not support kids using them in class
• Desktop Video
• RSS Newsfeeds
  I’m not sure we really ban them as much really don’t understand the power here.

So, how do the cell phones and pda’s become the clickers we are all scrambling to purchase for the classroom?  Using RSS feeds couldn’t we harness the power of the tools that are already in the kids hands?