Classroom 2.0

Just What Are 21st Century Skills?
No stone is left unturned in this description of the skills identified by a coalition of educators, business leaders and technology-oriented companies. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills framework is a "unified, collective vision" of what students will need to know and be able to do as adults. Click on various elements of the framework to read more details about the skill sets of "learning and innovation," "information, media and technology," and "life and career."

Project-Based Learning
Classroom 2.0 is all about integrating web tools and other digital technologies into project- and problem-based learning that meets curriculum objectives and content standards. This collection of ideas and resources at one of our ABPC wikis will help promote your thinking about these vital connections. Remember, it's not about the technology, it's about student-centered teaching and hands-on learning.

The Power of Virtual Communities
ABPC consultant Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach explores the educational potential of virtual communities in this blog article for TechLearning magazine. "The way I see it, social networking tools have the potential to bring enormous leverage to teachers at relatively little cost — intellectual leverage, social leverage, media leverage, and most important, political leverage…. The burning question in most of our minds is how can we accelerate the adoption and full integration of 21st Century teaching and learning strategies in schools today?"

Edutopia: For 21st Century Teaching
This site supported by the George Lucas Educational Foundation is the premiere resource for teachers who are eager to integrate digital technologies and 21st Century skills into their everday teaching. You’ll find not only original “text” reports about innovative instruction but supporting video documentaries, chat areas, and links to other resources on the Web.

Classroom 2.0: A Teacher Community
Here's a social networking site for teachers interested in the practical application of computer technology (especially Web 2.0) in the classroom and in their own professional development. Sample wide-ranging conversation and commentary (and learn how a social networking site functions) by joining this free professional group.

Classroom 2.0 – The Wiki
This website, in the form of a wiki, features a huge amount of information about Web 2.0 tools and ideas about how to integrate web services and software into everyday teaching. Click on the "By Tool" list in the left margin to explore items of interest. Also visit the blog of Steve Hargadon, a leader in Classroom 2.0 networking.

K-12 Online Conferences
In 2006 a group of 21st Century educators began a massive annual online conference where teachers can share ideas and insights about teaching in the 21st Century. Last year's products are archived at this website, where you'll also find news of the 2007 conference – and where new products will appear soon. If you're new to Classroom 2.0 concepts, this is the perfect place to do some "free shopping." In the right margin, click on "Basic and Advanced Training" or "Overcoming Obstacles" to sample the wares.

Marco Polo and Thinkfinity
For quite a few years, the MarcoPolo program has provided no-cost, standards-based Internet content for the K-12 teacher and classroom, developed by national content experts. Online resources include panel-reviewed links to top sites in many disciplines, professionally developed lesson plans, classroom activities, and materials to help with daily classroom planning. Marco Polo has now been integrated into the Verizon Thinkfinity search engine, making it an even more accessible and powerful resource. If you're looking for a source of classroom-oriented video clips, try Vidipedia. You can share your own!

Internet Safety – A Links Collection
Michelle Russell, a middle grades technology teacher in Glenview, Illinois, has an ever-growing collection of Internet safety links at her Delicious bookmarking page. Also see her handout on student safety.

Microsoft Tech-infused Lesson Plans
The Microsoft-at-School program has put together a collection of detailed lesson plans that infuse technology into the classroom curriculum. You’ll find ideas for geography, history, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. And see other classroom tips and tricks at this Microsoft how-to page.

Connect with Teachers for Global Collaboration
If you're a teacher or principal who's interested in involving your students in collaborations with kids in other parts of the US or the world, you'll appreciate this wiki, created by several Apple Distinguished Educators, pulls together some resources that can help you find others who share your interest. And since it's a wiki, if you know of additional resources, you can add them yourself. Here's one good website for starters.

21st Century Skills for the Whole Child
Educational Leadership magazine summarizes a recent report by the The North American Council for Online Learning in this Summer 2007 article. It's a good place to read some discussion of 21st Century skills from the perspective of wholistic educators who argue that "virtual learning can transform education—but only by incorporating the skills students need for success in work and life." There's also a link to the complete report. Also, futurist Alvin Toffler weighs in on Future School.

Learning for the 21st Century
This report is the result of an in-depth dialogue, initiated by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The Partnership reached out to hundreds of educators, academics, business leaders and employers to determine a vision for learning in the 21st century, to reach consensus on the definition of 21st century skills, and to develop tools to aid communities in implementing this new model of learning. Here's a one-hour video by Partnership president Ken Kay. For thoughts about today's learning styles, also see "Portrait of a Digital Native."

Meaningful Learning in a Web-Based World
"Unlimited, ubiquitous, personalized media gratification is unlike anything we've ever had to contend with, and just letting it happen isn't a good idea," says educator Tom March. "To counteract the New WWW's potentially harmful impact on youth, educators must use technology to create learning experiences that are real, rich, and relevant." Declaring schoolwide bans of "3rd Generation" devices that can stream digital media from cellular networks isn't the best solution, March says. "We can and must do better." March shares his ideas about meeting this 21st Century education challenge in his Educational Leadership article, "The New WWW: Whatever, Whenever, Wherever" — part of EL's special issue on "Learning in the Digital Age" (December-January 2006).

See What One Teacher Is Doing!
At Mountain Ridge Middle School in Colorado Springs, CO, teacher Chris Clementi spurs students to learn software programs like PhotoShop by engaging them in project- and problem-based learning. See especially the "Students" webpage. For other teaching ideas, visit the Teaching Hacks wiki.

Web Tools for 21st Century Learning

What Is a Blog?
A blog (or weblog) is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed with the newest item at the top. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Many teachers are experimenting with blogging tools in their classrooms, as they engage students in discussions, projects, and "scribing" (summarizing important learnings from each lesson). This webpage offers a treasure trove of blog information and resources, including several instructive videos! If you'd like to see how one teacher is using a blog, click here!

What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a web application designed to allow multiple authors to add, remove, and edit content. The multiple author capability of wikis makes them effective tools for mass collaborative authoring – and for teaching and learning! This webpage (which is itself a wiki) compiles lots of useful information and using wikis and includes a selection of free wiki services of interest to teachers. Oh, and tutorial videos! One example of a free wiki service is WetPaint which combines some of the power of a website with collaborative features. George Hall Elementary in Mobile uses this tool.

What is a Podcast?
A podcast is a digital media file that is distributed over the Internet and available for playback on portable media players (like iPod) and personal computers. Teachers are helping students create podcasts as another vehicle to synthesize and report on learning. With nothing more than a digital recorder and a blog, wiki or website, you can help students share their work and thoughts with the world. This podcasting resources page has lots of links and several how-to videos. For more help, here's a tutorial at Education World. Here's another. And to see what one school is doing with podcasting, visit this site!

Digital Storytelling
Microsoft likes to say that its PhotoStory software "makes show and tell fun again." And so it does! PhotoStory, iMovie and similar software make it possible for teachers and students to create their own documentaries -- combining images, narrative text and audio. This link leads to a website dedicated to "Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling" that includes information developed with classroom practitioners in mind. And find more classroom-oriented ideas here.

Video Sharing at TeacherTube
To see how Web 2.0 can help teachers improve their practice, explore the new “YouTube for educators.” At TeacherTube, you can peruse, rate and add to a mushrooming library of classroom-related media created by teachers. Plus you can network with other educators around interests. We give it 4.5 apples!

NING: Social Networking with Students
NING is a free web platform where anyone can create a social network and use tools that promote discussion, idea-sharing, project collaboration and more. Educators are using NING’s privacy options to create secure climates where they can take advantage of a social networking environment to promote deeper learning. Explore NING’s “frequently asked questions” pages to learn all the details.

Think.Com: Designed with Kids in Mind
The Oracle Foundation (supported by Adobe Corporation) has created Think.Com as a safe environment for teachers and students to network together online and to reach out to other students and classrooms throughout the world. The free service allows teachers to help students establish safe email addresses and use websites and interactive tools to publish their ideas, collaborate on projects, and build knowledge together. This site comes highly recommended by several schools in ABPC’s 21st Century Schools project. Explore it for yourself!

Mind Meister: Inspiration + Collaboration
MindMeister is a free website that lets you and your students "mind map" with web-based software useable by any computer with a browser. MindMeister allows real-time collaboration, allowing teacher or student teams to see each other's changes as they happen. To boost collaboration even further, Mind Meister integrates the free web-based phone service Skype, so users can talk while they juggle new ideas. Imagine doing this with students at different computers in the same building, room or tech lab.

Second (School) Life
Second Life is an Internet-based 3D digital world, imagined, created, and owned by its residents, with millions of members from more than 100 countries. Educators are being to explore the teaching and learning possibilities of this wildly popular digital world. In a series of articles for T.H.E. Journal, teacher-consultant Patricia Deubel considers the potential and possible pitfalls of a learning environment where people are represented by digital avatars and visitors pay real money for virtual real estate.

Kathy Schrock's Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers
Long before most of us were surfing the Web on a daily basis, school media specialist Kathy Schrock was finding, reviewing and linking to web-based resources and sharing her discoveries with the education world. Here's a list of Web 2.0 tools that Schrock thinks are worth investigating. Also see her Icing on the Cake list.

ABPC 21st Century Schools

21st Century Learning Wiki
Here’s the central repository of information about our 21st Century Learning initiative, including samples of curriculum and professional development activities, conference presentations, projects completed by school teams, and other cool resources.

Web 2.0 Projects in Alabama Schools
We’ve created a terrific page at the Delicious social bookmarking site where you can link to over 170 present and past projects of teachers and administrators in our 21st Century Learning program. Blogs, wikis, podcasts and much more!

More about the ABPC 21st Century Schools Project
Visit our 21st Century Learning page at the Alabama Best Practices Center website to learn more about the goals and accomplishments of our work so far.

21st Century Collaborative
ABPC consultant Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach provides a great portal into the world of Classroom 2.0 via her blog 21st Century Collaborative. Subscribe or visit regularly to keep up with goings-on in the world of innovative web-based teaching and learning. For example, Sheryl offers a comprehensive overview of her ideas about Professional Development 2.0 (it's all about building community) in this July 2007 blog entry.

Microsoft Partners In Learning (US)
Find out more about the Microsoft Partners in Learning program in the United States. This page at the Microsoft website highlights nine granted programs in the PiL Mid-Tier program, including the Alabama Best Practices Center.

Other Resources

APT Plus
Alabama Public Television’s APT Plus program is well known among many Alabama teachers and schools for its free portal to many of the video resources in the United Streaming database. But that’s just the top layer. APT Plus offers access to a dozen other video libraries covering core content areas – plus links to outside collections like Annenberg’s teacher PD site, Learner.org.

Create Your Own S.W.A.T. Team
In this case, SWAT stands for "Students Who Assist with Technology." Many schools and teachers are realizing the benefit of using students to support the spread of effective technology use in schools. This article at Edutopia reflects on the phenomenon. If managed properly, student tech teams seem to empower kids and help teachers. At West Blocton Elementary in Bibb County, the student tech team (3rd and 4th graders) removed all the old computers from the technology center, installed them in teachers' classrooms, and set up 26 new computers in the center space. They are definitely ready. Are we?

Ensuring Technology Access for All
The Digital Equity Summit, sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education, examined "the images that shape the identity of what children bring to school each day." Read some of the latest thinking on bridging the digital divide in this article on the summit. If this issue is important to you, also consider joining the Digital Divide Network.

Will Richardson
Will Richardson, a teacher-consultant who frequently talks to educators about using web-based tools in the classroom, is the author of a popular professional book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts."