Eclectic Technology

This post shares another visual that provides one model of learning in the 21st century. Specifically, it prioritizes six ideas:

* Disciplinary Knowledge - "Build and apply content knowledge to think deeply and act as a practitioner of the discipline"

* Self-Knowledge - "Experiment and create, while embracing failure as an opportunity for growth in order to design new ideas and solutions."

* Innovation Creation - "Recognize one’s emotional, physical, and learning needs, strengths, and challenges to nurture personal growth and resilience"

* Collaboration - "Share knowledge and resources, building on a diversity of ideas and experiences to achieve group goals and interdependence"

* Responsibility - "Understand one’s impact and influence in a local and global community; cultivate compassion, and take positive action"

* Communication - "Express ideas effectively through varied means of presentation; understand one’s audiences, actively listen; and build connection"

Additional information on each of these six ideas is included in the post.

This post shares 12 insights from a variety of innovators. What are some of their ideas? (Ideas below quoted from the post)

* Realize that Out of School time tends to be more inspiring and powerful ...

* Provide unique Experiences that surprise and allow children to see things from new perspectives...

* Refining the skill of Asking Questions is the fuel that ignites innovators...

The post includes some sharing of how innovators explored in their own unique ways as children. You will also find one short video of an innovator sharing their story as well as a link to eleven videos from the conference Innovators to Educators. This post may bring some fresh ideas to use with students of all ages.

If your goal is to teach 21st century skills you need to define the skills and the decide how to teach them. And if your goal is to use multimedia you have already set some parameters. This post explores one way to organize the skills with the ability to create multimedia. The specific skills are:

* creativity and innovation

* critical thinking

* information fluency

* collaboration

* communication

* managing complexity

* mulitcultural literacy

For more information click through to the post.

Does innovation come from  within, or are there ways we can help inspire our students? This infographic provides 27 suggestions that you might try in your classroom. Do you have anything that works well for you that is not included? If so please share it!

Vicki Davis shares her insights in working with students on informational text, specifically in history (but applicable to other subjects).

The infographic located in this posts looks at six challenges that students may face, and provides insights that you may use to meet them with your students.They six challenges are listed below, with additional detail found in the post.

1. Did the student read the text?

2. Did the student comprehend the text?

3. Where does the student struggle?

4. How can you give meaningful feedback to the students?

5. How can you get meaningful data to help your whole class?

6. How do I align this with standards?

Then Davis raises an important question: "So now, how do we meet these challenges and teach nonfiction text, put questions in the text, improve the questions, personalize learning AND align with standards?"

She provides the answer by introducing a website that is new to me, Actively Learn. Davis provides a great review of the site and shares what she sees and pros and cons. There is a freemium version and a paid version, so you may choose to try it out and see how it works.

Think about the skills that are defined as 21st century skills:

* collaboration

* communication

* critical thinking and problem solving

* creativity and innovation

Are these skills that can be taught without technology? If we look to the past, we would answer yes, they are skills that can be taught without technology.

We are often asked to teach these skills today with technology. What if we introduce these skills with technology, providing students the opportunity to collaborate and learn how to effectively communicate face-to-face, learn about visual cues and more. This post explores how each of these skills may be taught without technology. You can take the information and consider how to them augment the skills with technology to help your students deepen their understanding.

Take STEM, add A for Art, and you get STEAM. As this post states, if you think of Leonardo di Vinci and his work this is a logical connection. This post discusses why adding the A for Art is important and the changes that may happen because of it, such as more innovation and creativity.

The list of resources includes links for all five letters and chances are you will find a few that you may not have checked out. Below are five of the resources listed...but click through to see the rest, and all are hot linked in the post. (Most tools listed are free but a few have costs.)

* Cardboard Challenge

* Why Scientific Innovation Needs the Arts

* PBS Learning Makers Party

* Odyssey of the Mind

* The Arts Institute of Chicago

Have fun exploring this diverse set of STEAM resources!

What are the top ten skills that are needed in the workplace today? The University of Phoenix has published this infographic that provides a look at the top ten skills as well as information on how to acquire the skills. Are you providing your students the opportunity to learn and/or practice these skills?

"America grew not just because of its industrial base but also thanks to its inventors and thinkers: Thomas Edison, Jonas Salk, Steve Jobs. Our future lies that way too. Working with the Motion Picture Association of America and Microsoft, TIME polled Americans about creativity in the workplace, schools and government. Does the U.S. still have the juice to be a global leader in innovation? Is our creativity being harnessed at work?"

This infographic shares results of this survey. Do you think American is the world leader in creativity? Do you think creativity is supported in schools or at work? If you would like to see the questions there is a slideshow located at http://business.time.com/2013/04/26/the-time-creativity-poll/