and other 21st Century Teaching Tools...What follows is a discussion about eTwinning, Twitting, Tweeting, Blogging and other creative, cutting edge teaching tools. The video below highlights the mind mapping by teachers at the eTwinning conference brainstorming sessions focusing on creativity in the classroom. Creativity is where the American Spirit triumphs. We need to move beyond rote learning and competing with the Japanese for high test scores, we need to recapture that great American skill -
Creating.eTwinning is the newest European concept used by teachers to connect with other schools in Europe. The eTwinning project aims to encourage European schools to collaborate using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Being 'twinned' with a foreign school also encourages cross-cultural exchanges of knowledge, fosters students' intercultural awareness, and improves their communication skills. It's a lifelong learning concept in our new "small world."
Have a look at some other cutting edge teaching tools designed to incite creative learning in the high-tech, fast-paced internet world we live in today.
Twitter, used by Barack Obama, answers the question, “What are you doing right now”. To many people it seems like an endless stream of pointless text messages, however, if you start to follow like-minded educationalists, you can soon build a very effective personal learning network who can answer your questions, collaborate in projects and teach you all sorts of new ideas. It can also be a great tool for teachers to communicate with their students. Check out the
Twitter4Teachers Wiki - and find teachers of like minds. Give it a go, it’s addictive. Oh, and you can embed your Tweets into your blog, too.
Textspeak is the way students write simplified versions of messaging for digital texting. For example, phrases like Laugh Out Loud become LOL. (For an eye-opening shorthand list visit
here.) One teacher I read about utilized this to engage students in studying Shakespeare. The challenge was to rewrite parts of Romeo and Juliet using textspeak. Very fun!
Blogging has exploded on the internet. Bloggers in fact, have been some of the first people to evaluate and publish what is actually
in the stimulus package. Members of Congress, who were each only given a (unsearchable) hard copy (!) of the plan, went out to the 'blogosphere' to get the low-down on what is actually written in the plan. Teachers who are on the front lines of communicating with students need to maintain blogs chock full of information, challenges and world connections for their students. Unlike a stagnate website, blogging is two-way communication. Connectivity to the world at large is now in the DNA of the young generation - why do you think they live their lives in places like Facebook and MySpace? However, the disconnect is with the teachers. Teachers who have no understanding of technology or do not utilize it in the classroom are hard-pressed to engage their students. Setting up a blog is so easy -- I created this one in less than 5 minutes! (Since then, of course, it has taken over as my latest addiction.)
Here are a few examples of cutting-edge teaching techniques I found on the internet very quickly. One teacher in England, Tom Barrett maintains a blog entitled
"ICT in my Classroom." He offers tutorials on creative ways to use your whiteboard and your pocket video camera as well as others.
John Sutton also offers a great site "to provide educators and educational institutions with all the tools and knowledge they need to harness the power of blogs in school." His Top
Ten Free Web Apps make great additions to teacher blogs. One of his recommendations is
Teacher Tube, an educational version of You Tube.
Fun tools also exist for students to use in writing and generating publications creatively.
Stripey Design is currently creating a simple internet tool for children which allows them to create their own animated stories with a few clicks. And
Comic Brush offers a fun way for students to create their own comics.
Quikmaps is a Google Maps mashup that allows you to draw over the top of a Google Map. Teachers prefer this tool because it doesn't display all the community content that Google Maps does. Once you've added a location tag, you can add a photo or evn a Google video to that location: fantastic for local area studies or field trips etc.
I could go on and on - there are hundreds of thousands of fantastic supportive tools available on the internet. The resources exist worldwide - filtering them is a difficult task. Fortunately, reviews of the latest information on the use of technology and safety on the internet can be found at places like
Think You Know, online.
A former principal I know shared what he had learned at a national principal conference several years ago. The point was made that if a time traveler from the 1890's stepped into today's world of technology, he would not recognize most anything. An operating room would be something unimagined. A high speed train or airplane would be mind-boggling. The tools used in business - the internet, cell phones and computers would be unbelievable. However, if that 1890's person walked into a standard classroom of today, it would look and function pretty much as it did back then with books, teacher lectures, chalkboards, pencils, papers and desks.
I would submit to you that public schools have failed to grow with and embrace technology. We have failed our children and yet we
blame the children. We have failed the community and yet we
blame the community. The rallying cry has been, "parental involvement is key". Why is that, anyway? Because good parents nurture
relationships with their children and they use every teachable moment they see to enlighten and encourage their children.
Schools should not blame children for their failure to learn - ALL children can learn. It should happen all day long in the schools - regardless of what goes on in the homes. ALL children should be encouraged, enlightened and taught using the tools and technologies they can relate to and understand. The tools exist. Virtual travel and shared learning is possible. I implore the leadership in DeKalb county to focus their attention on implementing as much technology as possible and focusing on massive teacher training in the use of those technologies.
Simply providing the tools does not make a difference though. A paintbrush places the paint much differently in the hands of a master versus a novice. Teachers need help understanding how best to utilize these tools to inform and excite their students. My suggestion is to place someone who lives, eats and breathes technology in every school. This person does not have to go through the hoops of becoming a "certified" teacher - this person would function as an on-site technology leader and trainer - informing teachers daily about the world children live in and helping teachers utilize the tools readily available in order to excite the learning potential in each and every child. Let's not focus on catching up to other districts and states - let's focus on moving beyond them by truly embracing 21st century learning tools.
Please use the comments to add great resources for learning and to share stories about the places you see where interactive, high-tech learning is going on.
