Professional Development--21st Century Literacy

There are several of us who continue to do lots of thinking around the area of 21st Century Literacy. There is so much to think about and it is fun to learn and think together. How do we make these experiences authentic for our students? Especially at the elementary level?

This week, we had another great meeting. We met at my house and shared our learning and thinking. We spent about 3 hours together. We started off talking about the things we've learned this summer and the things we were hoping to learn more about. Then we spread out throughout the house and shared with each other. Some of us learned to do Voicethreads. others learned how to use the Flip Video camera and to edit film. We played with lots of tools and left with lots to think about. You can see that once the whole group chat was over, we spread around the house and learned from/taught each other. Everyone left with something new to think about.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A few blog posts connected to our professional development this week. We came together to learn from each other because we wanted to-because we trust the people we are learning with and we all have different goals and hopes for ways to use this new thinking in our teaching. Wesley Fryer wrote about professional development in his blog post TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND CHOCOLATE CAKE. I think that there are so many ways for us to learn and summer provides time for some of this more intense learning.

I also thought David Warlick's post Technology and Teaching was very thought-provoking. He asks some hard questions. Definitely something to think about.

We are hoping to have one more of these sessions before school begins and then to meet throughout the school year. A great network of people to think and learn with!