School 2.0

"The times, they are a-changin',"sang the Sixties songster Bob Dylan.  So it was true in 1964 when the song was released, and so it is true today.  What is changing now, however, are not so much the economic and political structures of society (though these may indeed change, and change sometime soon), but the fundamental tools that we use to communicate with one another.

It was not long ago when the Internet itself was novel and revolutionary.  Yet, for much of its lifespan it wasn't all that different from previous forms of communication.  Content creation required at least some knowledge of a rather arcane markup language (HTML) and the resources of large institutional servers.

Enter Web 2.0.   

Web 2.0 applications now have made it effortless to contribute to the emerging world and culture of the Internet.  We now have social media, blogs, picture and video sharing, and collaborative documents among others.

As a future educator, I must decide which of these hundreds (or thousands) of applications I will integrate into my teaching practice in the near future.  In some sense, it is like walking into a carpenters toolshed and beholding row upon row of strange devices, some looking like they belonged to medieval Inquisitors. An important element of being a carpenter is knowing what's the right tool for the job.  In a similar way, I need to choose the right Web 2.0 tools for the job.  However, the 'job' in question is more than understanding the superficial features of the task at hand (creating a document, or a video, or a picture).  As a teacher, the 'job' is to motivate my students to actively engage in learning and to become enthusiastic participants and leaders in their own learning.  Thus, the choice of tools cannot be left to mere whimsy, but must take into account the real needs of my students.  And what are those needs? Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides some guidance in this regard.

Maslow 2.0

What these images indicate is that different Web 2.0 tools correspond to different levels of emotional and social needs.  LinkedIn, for example, functions so as to meet students' need for safety, through employment, by helping students develop a professional online presence.  Social media, like Google+, Facebook, or Edmodo (for an educational setting) can help meet students' needs for a sense of belonging, especially for friendship. Tools like Twitter can help meet a student's need for esteem and help them develop confidence (i.e. shy students might be more willing to tweet responses to class discussion questions).  And ultimately, students' need for self-realization can begin to be met through blogging and micro-blogging tools such as WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr, as well as by means of real-time collaborative tools such as Google Docs.

Hopefully, by selecting tools that meet my students' social and emotional needs, I will have selected the right tools that will effectively do the job of motivating them and empowering them in their learning.

Teaching the Future: Who is the 21st Century Learner?

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
     -Alvin Toffler, sociologist, futurist, and author. 

Contemporary society has changed drastically in the past 20 years. The most significant of these changes, as it applies to the craft of teaching, are the technological developments that have affected the way that we communicate, collaborate, and do business.


In response to these changes, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, an American group consisting of corporations and educators, has developed a mission statement outlining the needs of 21st-century learners.

But who are these 21st-century learners?  What are some of their attributes? They are students who are natural technology users and whose lives outside of school are saturated with technology.  They are comfortable with multitasking, they communicate across various forms of digital media, they are often curious, and they see the need to be ongoing learners.




The report by the Partnership of 21st Century Skills, as well as other reports by different organizations, approaches the issue of the education of the 21st-century learner from multiple dimensions.  It emphasizes the importance of teaching the core subjects, but proposes that they be integrated within a 21st-century context (like writing for an online readership) and using 21st-century skills and tools (for example, by using Web 2.0 applications).  Furthermore, students need to learn new 21st-century content, espeically as it relates to increasing global awareness in our increasingly interconnected world.


As educators, we have to remember that while our students are 'primed' for 21st-century learning as a result of their social milieu, we do need to help them develop and perfect these skills.  Furthermore, we have to be on guard against any potential downsides of 21st-century tools, such as informational overload, distraction, and issues with attention.  Ultimately, our mission is to ensure that our students can successfully navigate the still-stormy waters of an uncertain tomorrow, whose only certainty is that it will be different from anything that we can imagine today.

Blogging in the Classroom

Chris Ludwig, a science teacher in Colorado, is a teacher who has decided to blogging for the purposes of classroom assessment exclusively.  He has gone as far as abandoning testing in its entirety.

Without going to a blogging-only model, many of his ideas are exciting to me, a pre-service teacher.  I especially liked his idea of getting rid of the old worksheet approach.  Also, forcing students to write more is definitely a plus as teachers are encouraged to improve student literacy across all subjects.  Also, it'd be a great way to allow parents to read and monitor the work of their children.

So how do we assess the students (mandatory) responses? Well, you can always use a rubric that others have made, or make your own just like you would for any paper-based evaluation.

Journeying by Google Maps (Part 3)

This is, more or less, the bus route I take to school each day.



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Take the 95 from Norice and Woodroffe until you get to the Campus station.  It's the Transitway all the way!  There's a neat little path through the woods to get from Woodroffe into Centrepointe.  Beware: It can be pretty scary at night!

Journeying by Google Maps (Part 2)

Here's a satellite view of Lake Ontario.



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Journeying by Google Maps (Part 1)

Right now I'm in 'Integrating Technology in the Classroom'.  I sure wish my teacher journey would take me to Chateau Lake Louise!

Luckily, I can take a virtual vacation:



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Vector Marking

Is is time for a quantum revolution in student assessment?

Background:  One of the most important differences between classical and quantum physics was the replacement of scalar quantities by vector quantities.

How does have this have any relation to education? I don't think that the scalar quantities that educators are so used to using (marks from 0-100, letter grades, individual marks on test questions) are the best way of assessing the information that we, as teachers, are receiving.  Why aren't we using the insights of linear algebra that companies like Google use all of the time to help us provide incredibly relevant feedback and analysis of student strengths an weaknesses.

Perhaps the 0-4 rubric system is a step in the write direction, but it's only the first step of a journey of a thousand miles.

What do you think?  Do I even make sense?