Currently I’m doing some research in the area of Challenge Based Learning ……According to the site Challenge Based Learning is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems. The model above is from the ACOT2 section worth reflecting on and exploring further I think.
SuperClubsPLUS gives primary schools a safer alternative to the consumer social networks.
Social opportunities
The communities are available from breakfast to bedtime - on school and home computers and mobile devices, so it’s non-stop learning for children at school and at home. Children from different backgrounds and cultures keep in touch with friends, share interests and help each other.
Creative Learning
In the communities children learn by experience. Here are just a few of the things they can do in their safe personal online learning spaces:
Communicate
Email - build friendships around the world
Forums - discuss global issues, current affairs, wildlife, music, children’s concerns and their school work
Create
Home Pages - build secure personal websites on hobbies & school work (with their own words, images and sounds and content from the huge Media Library)
Project Pages - create pages dedicated to school projects
Collaborate & contribute
Webrings - join shared interest groups
Clubs - read and write for online magazines
School Pages - contribute to collaborative school projects
Student Voice - share their thoughts in research projects
Events - meet famous authors and people from other countries
Personalised Learning
The children join learning projects and events such as: a discussion on global issues in the One World Club; a writing club with a popular author; a Hot Seat with an Olympic hopeful athlete, an artist or an astronomer; an interview with Anne Frank or Tutankhamun or a Maths fun day. There’s something for every child as they follow their own interests and work at their own pace and level.
And their achievements and contribution to the community are recognised and rewarded with the STAR Awards challenges, through which they learn a huge range of ICT skills. Web Safety and Literacy, develop, social skills and global Citizenship.
IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience-Posted February 18, 2009 is well worth reading and discussing.
1. Pull, don’t push.
2. Create from relevance.
3. Stop calling them “soft” skills.
4. Allow for variation.
5. No more sage onstage.
6. Teachers are designers.
7. Build a learning community.
8. Be an anthropologist, not an archaeologist.
9. Incubate the future.
10. Change the discourse.
Web Link: http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20090218/ideos-ten-tips-for-creating-a-21st-century-classroom-experience
This is a great example of the learning content available to us all via YouTube ……..who needs to spend thousands of $$$$ on a course to learn something? YouTube EDU!!!
Jennifer Raymond (Stanford University) is building a “wiring diagram” for the brain. By bridging the gap between individual synapses and whole-brain learning & memory, Raymond’s research offers new insights and strategies for medical rehabilitation and K-12 education.
Google Earth 5.0 is very powerful and has lots more features for learning and teaching. Try Recording a tour, check out Oceans and new street views. The look back in time feature is very cool.
Powerful Learning, Technology & Mathematics in action!!!
Mr. Marcos has found this task to be so motivating that he has worked to build a new YouTube like Web site (http://www.mathtrain.tv) that he and the rest of his school’s math department uses to share the growing number of screencasts that students are creating. He has found that allowing students to create material for this site increases engagement and provides struggling students with more opportunities for reviewing troubling concepts. See what you think? …would be great if we had Aussie Kids doing this using all different ways of solving problems etc!!! I’ll leave it with the math’s Gurus to ponder!!!