21st Century Learning

Field Journal
21st Century Learning: Going Global

I observed a conference on 21st Century Learning. I was a little nervous about attending a conference never having done so before, but when it started, I was a little more relaxed and able to enjoy what I was experiencing. Dr. Chen’s site edutopia.org is an invaluable resource for becoming a better educator. I especially enjoyed the link to project based learning because that is how I learn best. His site offers examples and links to almost anything you can imagine. Unfortunately, I have not been able to spend more time exploring and learning on this site, but plan to do so as soon as the semester is over.
Even though Dr. Chen was interesting, I found the lunch speakers more interesting. They are a great example of collaboration and I love the idea of writing research papers with multimedia. I question however, if this is truly possible with professors who refuse to accept web pages as good sources, or tell you only use books. It has been several years since I have had to write a research paper and find myself doing so now. I find the use of the internet such a valuable tool that I cannot imagine writing a paper without it. With all the e-books available to us online why would we go to a library and waste time searching for a book that has already been checked out. As the speaker stated, some people check out books to keep others from finding the information. I found that to be the case with my paper and am grateful that I was able to find what I was looking for in an e-book.
I attended two breakout sessions, the first being 21st Century Learning Communities - Promethean with speaker Gordon Froloff. I will not go into too much detail since Andrea has done such a great job of describing it. I will say that although it did sound like a sales pitch I loved the product, mostly because of the interactive qualities that it brings to a class. Gordon had asked a question about fraction, which I will admit I need some brushing up on, and when the answers came up I didn’t feel like the “dumb kid” in the class because I wasn’t singled out for not knowing the answer. This is a powerful tool to have in the class but I do not think this should be a teacher’s only tool. I would use it as a motivational tool possibly to engage children with attention disorders.
The second session I attended was Tween Social Networking Sites with Kevin Jarrett and his daughter Holly. It was interesting to see how an actual tween in the 7th grade interacts on the computer. Most of the sites she showed us, although very interesting, involved the use of actual money, of which I am not a big fan. You can use these sites without actual money but as my daughter and I found out, they are not much fun. For the first time ever after this conference, I allowed my daughter to use the computer for a social site and truthfully, she did not care for it. She enjoyed creating an avatar but that was about the extent of her enjoyment. She spent about 2 hours playing in whyville.com and when she was done asked me what the whole point of it was. I told her it was to talk with people from around the world as Holly had mentioned in the conference. Alex responded, “I already do speak with people from around the world when I call my friends in Spain." Needless to say she was not a big fan, but we will be trying some of Holly’s other suggestions. I have attached a copy of her power point presentation that I believe does include some valuable information on other social sites.
http://tiny.cc/Hollyspresentation