Learning&Teaching

=Learning and Teaching= toc

Changing DNA
media type="custom" key="2023172" A 2 min video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l72UFXqa8ZU

We Learn from Failure
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Rigor & Relevance
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Leaving teaching to become a teacher
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The Google Class
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Twitter
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Learning Methods
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Boycotting standardized exams
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=Findings=

The world is no longer a dark, unknown place for today’s school kids (Prensky, 2008). Kids are not intellectually empty; even though some of what they know may be incomplete, biased or wrong, they arrive at school full of knowledge, thoughts, ideas and opinions about their world and their universe. Thanks to technology, kids in developed countries grow up knowing about or being able to find out about pretty much anything from the past or present that interests them. Learning is enhanced by opportunities to share and learn with others (Walsh, Asha, & Sprainger, 2007). Students need to develop skills in sharing knowledge and learning with others both in face to face situations and through technology. Educators should help users become producers, take all the children and let them become co-producers and co-developers in education; turn consumers into designers. The term remix means to take cultural artifacts and combine and manipulate them into new kinds of creative blends (Knobel & Lankshear, 2008). Like Knobel & Lankshear, I believe that approaching digital remix as the art and craft of endless hybridisation could provide an educationally useful lens on culture and cultural production generally and on literacy and literacy education more specifically. Tapping into the remix production could prove educationally beneficial for learners and teachers alike.

Even though students of today are growing up in the midst of sophisticated digital communication, they need a great deal of understanding of the messages and knowledge being created through different modes of communication, as well as the ability to discriminate and critique these messages. The web has been a blessing to me as an educator. My planning as a teacher has led to classes that are more engaged, students can quickly find current as well as detailed information and the web has given students far greater power to follow their interests and to support their beliefs. Students are likely to be reading and writing emails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos, listening to podcasts and social networking. It is now time to take education to the next level. It is time for education leaders to raise their heads above the daily grind and observe the new landscape that’s emerging. Our students are no longer “little versions of us,” as it was with us in the past, says Prensky (2005). Our students will evolve and change so rapidly that we won’t be able to keep up. As educators, we must use our students’ 21st century innovations and behaviours and we must abandon our pre-digital instincts and comfort zones. This means encouraging decision making amongst students, involving students in designing instruction and in getting input from students about how they would teach. Teachers do not need to master all the new technologies.


 * References**

Knobel, M. & Lankshear, C. 2008. Remix: the art and craft of endless hybridization: digital remix provides an educationally useful lens on culture and cultural production as well as on literacy and literacy education.(Report). //Journal of Adolescent &amp; Adult Literacy//, 52(1), 22(12).

Prensky, M. 2005. Listen to the natives.(schools should improve teaching). //Educational Leadership//, 63(4), 8-13.

Prensky, M. 2008. Turning on the lights. //Educational Leadership//, 65(6), 40-45.

Walsh, M., Asha, J., & Sprainger, N. 2007. Reading digital texts.(reading instruction). //Australian Journal of Language and Literacy//, 30(1), 40(14).