21st Century Thinking-My Blog Visits

Another round of great sites I've found that help me think about 21st Century "stuff". In no particular order. Just some posts that helped my personal thinking recently.

MEET ME AT THE CORNER is a great site for kid videos. I have been looking for videos that kids can study as "mentors" when they create their own. This site is full of not only kid-friendly videos,but videos made by kids, videos on how to make videos, and more. A great resource if you are thinking of movie-making with elementary students.

KIDS WHO THINK is a blog that I love. Fun weekly challenges invites kids to use their creativity. So many great ideas--Kids are sooo smart! I worry that we are missing this kind of learning in schools and this reminds me how critical these experiences are for kids.

Will Richardson shares his observations after his 10 day trip to Australia. The kids in charge of the learning. He visited the Wooranna Park Primary School.  This school makes me sooo happy.  There is a great video that summarizes the way the school works on the site.  To me, that is the key to 21st Century learning.  

Kip's post Time to Reflect was key to me in my thinking of how to infuse more technology into my days. The debrief and reflecting is key in our day and I worry that we are losing that in our hurry to "teach" things. I can see the share and debrief as the critical piece of a workshop with new tools. No matter what tools are available to students, the reflective share is key.

For those of you who have not ventured to Twitter yet. Ryan Bretag has a 30 Day Twitter Challenge posted. He has some great advice for those of you missing out on the fun!
30 Day Twitter Challenge

At 59 Minutes, a thoughtful post about the reality of making the changes in the classroom that we often learn about at conferences.

I am always intrigued by any new information about the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. This article
was recently posted which includes some interesting tours and thoughtful practices.

One of the posts that solidified some of my own thinking was from GENERATION YES BLOG titled "Educational Technology Doesn't Work". I continue to worry that anything on the computer is being tagged in the same category. For me, the key to quality instruction with 21st Century tools is about creation and information. Games and online worksheets cannot be put into the same category. But that seems to be what is happening in many cases.

At Creating Lifelong Learners, there is a great post about priorities in technology purchases. So many tools are coming out so quickly and deciding which will have the most impact for students is a challenge. For me, it is always about student creation and I appreciated the premise of this post. Very smart and helpful.

And I loved the post HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT? INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY ONE BYTE AT A TIME at Tea for [Web] 2.0 (I love the name of the blog too!)  So much of this tech is so overwhelming--where do you begin.  She says:

"The process of integrating technology into our libraries and classroom spaces seems daunting at first, much like climbing a mountain or eating an elephant - but if we simplify the process, start small and work our way up and out, great things can and will happen."