Did You Know?

Choosing from a list of video titles found on YouTube, my interest was peaked immediately when I saw the title, "Did You Know?", so I selected that one to watch.  However, several seconds into it, I realized that this same video was used during one of my staff development courses and therefore I had already seen it.  I watched it again though with a new perspective of technology practice in my mind and a fresh question, "How does this connect to Blogging?"  I then decided to watch the video "Why Let Our Students Blog?" to see if there were any correlations to the first video.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a direct correlation.

The first video emphasizes the characteristics of the 21st century learner - what does he/she do, how does he/she think?, etc.  It also reveals how there is so much job fluctuation in the world right now.  Our students will most likely have between 10-14 jobs before they reach the age of 38.  With all of these shifting changes, we, as educators, have one important question to answer, "How do we prepare our students for technology and situations that don't even exist yet?"  In the end, we discover that it's more than just teaching them our content area.  We have to teach them skills that will be vital to their success in later years.  We need to teach them how to analyze, reflect, create, collaborate, evaluate, and communicate.  As educators, we already have a crucial responsibility to our students, but in this day and age our responsibilities have slightly shifted and we need to emphasize these skills in our classrooms, in our curriculums, and in our methods of teaching.

Giving our students the unique opportunity to use technology in the classroom is one way in which we can promote and foster these skills necessary to the 21st century learner.  The second video focuses on the advantages that come with blogging.  Through blogging we give our students the opportunity to communicate, to develop their literacy skills, to collaborate with others - in and outside of the classroom environment, to share their ideas, to create, and to actively reflect.  We also provide them with an audience and the chance to share their voice. 

Blogging is an engaging and motivating tool in education and we as educators need to begin to utilize technology in such a way that we provide our students (21st century learners) with necessary skills for the future.