C4T #3- Liz B. Davis

Liz B. Davis' Blog:
Blog Post #1:
5 Things Leaners Today SHOULD be Doing:

Liz Davis writes about the term "21st Century" and how she struggled with this overused term until she realized that the 21st century is TODAY, right now! She said that we have no more time to "get there", we are here! She has also been thinking a lot about ways to simplify her vision of what schools should be doing (see her last post) and what learners should be doing. She believes the following are the essential skills learners need to succeed in college and the workplace.

5 Things Learners TODAY Should Be Doing:	Locally	Globally
1. Inquiring	Asking questions about ideas and issues throughout the local/school school community.	Asking questions about ideas and issues throughout the world.
2. Investigating	Finding and researching answers and solutions using the people in the local/school community.	Finding and researching answers and solutions using the internet and other online tools.
3. Collaborating	Working and connecting effectively with classmates and teachers face-to-face and online.	Working and connecting effectively with people around the world face-to-face and online.
4. Creating	Building, Designing, Inventing and Producing solutions to local/school problems.	Building, Designing, Inventing and Producing solutions to global problems.
5. Communicating	Using writing, video, art, and other media to share solutions with the local/school community.	Using writing, video, art, and other media to share solutions with a global community.

My Comments: 
I introduced myself and EDM310. I then told her that I believe these 5 skills are crucial in learning and success. I really like how she broke each skill down for both local and global use. This was not a huge post so I was unable to give a long reply, but I did talk about collaboration and the skills I have been taught in EDM and I also talked about how important communication skills are, not only verbal but possible more important in writing. 


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Blog Post #2:
"Schools today should be...":

Preparing students to interact in a global economy. 

Liz Davis wrote about preparing students to work with an international community of colleagues. She said we need to provide them with opportunities to interact with people from around the world. Teachers also need experiences collaborating globally. Online social networks, such as Twitter, and  Facebook, provide teachers with a way to meet colleagues from around the world and around the country. These Online relationships in turn provide opportunities for classrooms to connect.

Preparing students to navigate and sift through an excess of information. 

She wrote that in order to prepare students to search for and evaluate information, we need to provide them with opportunities to do just that. We need to ask students to find answers to "ungoogleable" questions and then have them not only share their answers, but also describe their search processes and defend their sources.

Preparing students to contribute to and consume in a media rich market. 

In order to prepare students to consume and create multi-media messages, students should be both evaluating and creating videos, podcasts, and blogs. Students need to learn to be both educated consumers and producers of these messages. 

Preparing students to tackle new innovations. 

She also wrote that in order to prepare students to face and conquer new technology tools, we need to provide them with opportunities to solve their own problems. We can't provide them with step by step directions, but instead encourage them to seek out new tools, figure them out and communicate their learning with classmates.

Preparing students to think creatively, take risks and come up with new ideas. 

In order to encourage students to discover new ideas, we need to create learning environments that encourage and support not just failure, but also recovery from that failure.

Preparing students for digital citizenship. 

In order to teach students how to interact online, we must openly discuss issues of privacy, copyright, and online behavior. Students need to understand the difference between private and public spaces and how to behave in each place. They also need to learn how to interact online in responsible and ethical ways.



My Comments: 
I introduced myself and EDM 310 again. I commented about how thoughtful and interesting her post was. She mentioned she had written most of this post in 2008, but that it still applied today... I told her I thought it was shocking to know that these basic principles are still as much needed today as they were these years ago. I agreed with her information and broke down each idea she presented and gave first-hand knowledge or examples to support my opinion of agreeing with her. An example of this is: "Preparing students for digital citizenship": I told her about C4K and told her about the videos I have watched to help prevent privacy violations and to teach responsibility on the web.