Features
21st Century Student Handbook: Teaching Today’s Web-Centric Kids
2/27/2012 By: James Careless
Lots of schools are talking about the
importance of preparing their students
for an increasingly inter-connected,
Web-centric world. Here are some
districts that are “doing” it. Some of
their advice may be able to help the
reader avoid mistakes, etc.
Creating ePortfolios
Increasingly, job recruiters are not satisfied
with paper portfolios: They want to know what
prospective employees have achieved online. This
is resulting in the creation of e-Portfolios—online
repositories of a student’s work through his or her
academic career. Compiling them does not have
to be a chore: As a student completes and files
assignments in digital form, they are saved to an
online repository for ongoing access.
The best e-Portfolios are those that
contain a wealth of materials compiled over
time. Mindful of this, Scarsdale Middle
School in Scarsdale, NY, is teaching its
seventh graders the process of creating
an e-Portfolio to highlight their
ongoing work and assessment in
social studies class.
“These portfolios represent
purposeful collections of student
work that serve as evidence for their
individual abilities,” says Ken Holvig, the
school’s Head Computer teacher. “The steps for
creating the portfolio include collection of work
samples, selection through teacher and student
input, reflection, projection of future goals and
presentation to parents and peers.” The e-Portfolios
are shared online through Google Sites.
“Our seventh graders have responded to the
challenge by building robust documents rich
with chosen artifacts and
personal reflection,” Holvig
notes. In other words, the
process of creating e-Portfolios
of their own work is motivating
students to create better work; thus improving
their education and their job-hunting resources
down the line.
Developing Internet
Literacy
Tomorrow’s adults will live much of their lives in
cyberspace; not just socially, but to do their jobs
and manage their personal financial resources.
Doing this successfully requires ‘Internet Literacy’:
the ability to ‘read’ a Web site’s text, imagery, and
multimedia in an intellectually critical manner.
Susan Luft is a first grade teacher at Fox
Meadow Elementary School in Scarsdale,
NY. She has her students take part in
“Internet Workshops” where they learn
Internet literacy skills by analyzing a
specific Web site and discussing their results.
“One such learning experience that I used
with my first graders included the district social
studies inquiry studies with family holidays, and
the cultural universals that exist across societies,”
Luft says. In the exercise, the students read about
Christmas, Chanukkah, and Kwanza through
the Web site http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/holidays. Students were then asked to
complete a chart that included writing or sketching
four facts about each of the three holidays.
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| Scarsdale Middle School in Scarsdale, NY is teaching its seventh graders the process of creating e-Portfolios. |
Thanks to the Internet Workshops, “students
begin building essential online reading skills
that becomes part of their repertoire in and out
of school,” says Luft. “Further, the work permits
students to learn from one another about content
information, critical literacy skills, and the new
literacies of Internet technologies.”
Chats and Tweets as
Teaching Tools
Instructing students to watch the “State of
the Union” speech and learn from the
experience is nothing new. But
employing the Web to make it
into an interactive group exercise
is new and different; especially
when Twitter is a central teaching
tool.
Such was the inspiration of Diana
Laufenberg, who teaches 11th and 12th
grade students at the Science Leadership Academy
in Philadelphia and presented a showcase of 21st
century student projects at the recent New York
Tech Forum. When President Obama delivered
the State of the Union speech on January 24, 2012,
Laufenberg’s students shared their views with her
and each other via Twitter and the Moodle chat site.
“During the speech, my students generated
462 tweets and 36 pages of Moodle chat,”
Laufenberg reports. “Most importantly, they
were able to ask questions and make comments
about the speech’s content quickly and easily.
This resulted in the students getting a real grasp
not only of what was being presented, but also
the historical and political context of what the
President was saying. In other words, they didn’t
just sit through the State of the Union passively:
They heard it actively and critically.”
Make it Personal: Passion-
Driven Learning
Active participation is a hallmark of 21st century
learning, and nothing drives such participation
better than passion. This lesson has not been
lost on Humberto A. Pérez, an instructor in
the Connally High School Video Technology
Department in Austin, TX, and recent presenter
at the Texas Tech Forum conference. When he
introduces students to the tools of techniques
of video production, Pérez immediately engages
them by assigning a project near-and-dear to
every teen’s heart: namely producing
a short video about themselves called
‘Who Are You?’
“My goal is to find out what the
students are passionate about, and to help
them connect that passion to video production,”
Pérez explains. “They don’t just get on camera
and talk aimlessly. Instead, I have them script
up questions, which they then have to answer
on camera. After editing, the subsequent video
reflects who they are – and shows them how
effective this art form is for communicating ideas
and feelings.”
The passion generated is subsequently built
upon by Pérez. He teaches the students how to
write short films scripts. They then choose the
best one for production—for grading—and form
up into a complete film shoot with cast and crew
for the duration of the term. Perez has recently
launched a related non-profit for student films
called the Cinema Du Cannes Project.
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| A sample e-Portfolio from Scarsdale Middle School. |
Online Collaboration on
the Cheap
The Web’s ability to link people in different
locations in real-time, along with the financial
costs and security concerns of business travel
make online collaboration a necessary business
and intellectual skill.
At the Greenacres Elementary School in
Scarsdale, NY, fourth grade teacher Shoshana
Cooper and technology facilitator William Yang
are using Google Docs and a free educational
social networking site called Edmodo to teach
online collaboration.
Specifically, “students worked individually,
in pairs, and as a whole group to compile a
brochure created by groups studying a specific
environmental issue,” says Yang. Edmodo was
used to allow the students to discuss their views
during this process. Then, after viewing online
videos to learn about persuasive-style writing,
the students wrote scripts using Google Docs and
then shot PSA s, which were posted on Edmodo.
The project taught them to collaborate online; an
approach that Yang describes as being “extremely
engaging and motivating for students.”
“Everyone learns more when they are
actively participating rather than passively
sitting and listening to a teacher lecture,”
William Yang adds. “The use of social media
encourages more active participation; both in
and outside the classroom.”