The 21st Century Teacher

The September 2010 edition of the Teacher Net Gazette has a compelling article on the changing role of today’s teacher. Dr. Brad Johnson and Tammy Maxson McElroy have written a powerful piece titled “The Changing Role of the Teacher in the 21st Century”.
Here are a few statements from the article:

This means that children entering kindergarten today have been exposed to more information than their grandparents were two years after graduating high school.

This innovative educator of today utilizes authentic relationships and relevant teaching to connect education with the real world.

One major difference between the antiquated teacher role and the changing teacher role of today is the involvement of everyone in the educational community.

The effective teacher has to be the ‘thermostat’ that controls the environment of the classroom.

The changing role of the teacher means to move away from the isolation of the past and embrace the collegiality, expertise, and support of colleagues.

The changing role of the teacher includes reaching beyond the walls of the school.

With the release of the movie “Waiting for Superman” this month and recent articles in Time Magazine, the public is focusing more than ever on public education in America. I believe this article to be a must read for educators and parents with young children. Those of us in public education need to look closely at the words of Dr. Johnson and Ms. McElroy as we reflect on our relationship with our students and parents. I invite your comments on “The Changing Role of the Teacher in the 21st Century”.

Photo: flickr by my_new_wintercoat

Teacher Web Pages

We have a great group of teachers at Longs Creek Elementary School in San Antonio Texas. The teachers know that for students to maximize their potential they must be excited and engaged about learning in and out of school. Knowing that their students love technology, the staff has gone back to the drawing board to create more engaging pages on their teacher webs. I am very proud of the efforts they are putting forth to connect with their students and parents. They are also very interested in connecting with other classes around the world by way of Skype to become 21st century global learners. If you are interested in skyping with one of our classes, log on to our web site and contact a specific teacher or contact me direct rcantr@neisd.net . Give the area of interest and age group you would be interested in skyping with and I’ll pass your name along to one of our teachers.
Here are a few of the teacher's web pages for you to view:
Lisa Carnazzo – Second Grade Teacher
Tami Jordan – Third Grade Teacher
Wendy Pleak – Kinder Teacher
Amanda Peet – First Grade Teacher
Jennifer Growcock – Fourth Grade Teacher
April Blackler – Fifth Grade Teacher
Mrs. Blackler has posted a video on her student blog page that I want to share with you. What video could not be more fitting than “We Are In This Together” by Ben Lee.
We look forward to a year of learning, laughing, and living. Hope you enjoy the video.

Life Long Learning Made Easier

The picture at the right is a plaque that hangs outside by office at school. Back in the 60s with the decoupage craze in full bloom, I created this plaque to remind me of one of my goals in education. Little did I know the impact this statement would have on my life! During my educational career I have experienced the following transitions: purple ditto machines to the zerox copiers, Underwood typewriters to computers, crank phone on the wall to the iphone in my pocket, USPS (snail mail) to twitter, Dick and Jane readers to http://www.starfall.com/ My, have I seen changes in communication, technology, and education!
Now is the time for all educators to take a critical look at their own professional development. Kathleen McGeady @kathmcgeady and Edna Sackson @whatedsaid, along with technology of the day, have created the solution for making it much easier for one to be a life long learner. I read a blog today written by Mrs. Ripp at 4thGrdTeach. She challenges those who say one of their goals in teaching is to make life long learners of their students. Listen up Mrs. Ripp at 4thGrdTeach. Maybe you can’t promises to make life long learners out of your students in one year, but they may be well on their way if you introduce our students to Kathleen McGeady list of technologies: twitter, blogs, google reader, podcasts, skype, and wikis/nings.
Read Kathleen McGeady’s post “Here are my 10 tops ways to engage in Professional Development in 2010” @ Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom.

Digital Story Telling

I have been interested in digital story telling for many reasons but the most important reason is because I believe it connects with students and increase their learning. Confucius had this to say way before the digital age:
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
What better way to hear, see, and do than digital story telling?
Wikipedia - Digital Story Telling under Uses in Primary and Secondary Education: "Teachers can incorporate digital storytelling into their instruction for several reasons. Two reasons include 1) to incorporate multimedia into their curriculum and 2) Teachers can also introduce storytelling in combination with social networking in order to increase global participation, collaboration, and communication skills. Moreover, digital storytelling is a way to incorporate and teach the twenty-first century student the twenty-first century technology skills such as information literacy, visual literacy, global awareness, communication and technology literacy."

A recent tweet by @langwitches, Silvia Tolisano a teacher of teachers in my eyes, told about digital storytelling at Kauai Pacific School. My interest in the activity was rekindled after seeing what early school age children were doing with digital story telling. What an exciting tool to use with students as they begin to read and write. I challenge you to watch this video from http://futureschools.ning.com/ and not see the immense value of digital story telling for children of any age.
Find more videos like this on Schools of the Future


For more information on digital story telling Silvia Tolisano slide show “Digital Story Telling – Tools for Educators on http://www.slideshare.net/ . She made this presentation at the Teacher2Teacher Conference in 2010. Silvia’s web site is http://www.globallyconnectedlearning.com/ .

Digital Natives Restless

The following is a note I wrote to Kathleen McGeady, a primary school teacher from Geelong Australia, after reading the Digital Native story in The Age, an Australian newspaper.


Kathleen, not only are the digital natives restless, I believe the entire educational community is restless. Digital classrooms are essential for our students to receive the quality education necessary for them to be productive citizen when they become adults. There appears to be a ground swell movement going on with this issue. While governments and individual states are moving toward digital classrooms, the most effective advancements are coming from individual classroom teachers like yourself and your teaching buddy, Kelly Jordan. Other issues, I feel are equally important for our students to be productive citizens as adult are global awareness and civic/humanitarian responsibility for one another. From following your blogs and classroom activities the last few month, I have the feeling you would agree. A couple of activities/programs that have touched our elementary/primary students are Pennies for Peace and Read to Feed. Pennies for Peace is a program started by Greg Mortenson author of Three Cups of Tea. http://www.penniesforpeace.org/ .

Read to Feed is sponsored by Heifer International, a long established global humanitarian effort. http://bit.ly/aSNB3t

Just sharing these two ideas with you and Kelly and offering the highest of praise to you two. As teachers, you are not only touching the lives of children but also modeling for educators throughout the world. Kathleen and Kelley, I wish you all the best as you finish out term III.

Read the Digital Natives are Restless story for yourself: http://bit.ly/anb5rW

for the love of learning: John Spencer on Accountability

for the love of learning: John Spencer on Accountability

SXSW Panel on Social Media

Social Media is playing an ever-changing role in our society today. Schools are no exception. Richard Byrne needs you help! He would like to have a panel discussion on the emerging role of social media in schools at 2011 SXSW. Read his post on Free Technology for Teachers and vote for the selection of this panel. Don’t delay vote today!

South by Southwest, commonly referred to as SXSW, is a huge technology, business, and entertainment conference held in Texas every March. This year, I submitted a proposal to host an education discussion panel. The panel is comprised of myself, Steven Anderson, Cory Plough, Mary Beth Hertz, Kyle Pace, and a moderator yet to be named. The panel discussion will focus on the emerging role of social media in schools. It could be a great opportunity to reach a non-education audience with our message of why schools need to embrace social media.In order for this panel to happen we need your votes. SXSW picks panels through a crowd-sourcing process. To vote please visit our proposal page and vote us up. You will need to register to vote. On behalf of Steven, Cory, Mary Beth, Kyle, and myself, thank you.