21st Century Learning – Page 5 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century Learning, 21st Century vocabulary words, credibility, educating digital natives, parents and technology

Building Habits of Credibility into the Curriculum & the Conversation

Posted on July 4, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

21st Century Vocabulary Words - Credibility — 21st Century Vocabulary Words – Credibility

How do we help children identify and understand information that is not credible?

Election seasons provide some of the best opportunities to teach 21st Century young people about credibility — in school, at home, online and off. As we go about electing new leaders, we see and hear candidates stating all sorts of claims, assertions, rumors, and postulations. Some are true, others slightly true, some absurdly false, but all come via various media, social and otherwise, though not always online.

Use the months before an election to encourage young people, and your child especially, to think about credibility. Focus on the ways that the media share information and on how to discover whether facts are true or not true. Continue reading “Building Habits of Credibility into the Curriculum & the Conversation” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, coding, digital learning, electronic toys, parents and technology, programming, robots, teaching

Teaching Kids to Code With Robots: Great New Yorker Article

Posted on May 11, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Check out the May 16, 2016 New Yorker for the article A Whole New Ball Game: The Rolling Robot That Teaches Kids to Code. Author D.T. Max, describes how Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson invented the Sphero robot, and he explains how the ideas were conceived, how Sphero was designed, and the long process of promotion and sales. The article also includes explanations about how Sphero and other coding toys aim to help children develop 21st Century skills.

The comments from Sphero creators and from Paul Barberian, who became the first Sphero CEO, provide first-hand descriptions about working with and expanding ideas, connecting with a business incubator, and eventually starting a viable business. Max reminds readers about the Silicon Valley process — empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test — and how this process is crucial to the success of new inventions and in the schools where students use robot toys to solve problems. The article also includes thoughts from Barberian about how the business is considering expansion ideas, especially thinking about robots that develop personal attachments with their owners — what’s called adaptive personality. Continue reading “Teaching Kids to Code With Robots: Great New Yorker Article” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, 21st Century vocabulary words, cyber-bullying, digital citizenship, digital learning, digital life, digital parenting, kids and privacy, parents and technology

Building Habits of Privacy Into the Conversation & the Curriculum

Posted on April 18, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Young people confuse privacy with safety.

While most kids carefully follow the rules that parents and teachers set out — no names, addresses, telephone numbers, or other personal information — when it comes to the big privacy picture, it turns out that many children understand very little about their personal data, how it accumulates, and how it affects privacy. (Check out my privacy links at the end of this post.)

Thus we need an alternate privacy teaching strategy that helps 21st Century kids — all ages really — understand how their digital-world data accumulates — even when users observe the all-important safety rules.

Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, writes about and consults on data and security, and his blog is Schneier on Security. In a 2010 post, A Revised Taxonomy of Social Networking Data, Schneier suggests how to classify data into six personal categories, the data generated as we use social media (and I’ll add other websites and games), and how all this data creates an individual’s digital profile. (Note: profile is another 21st Century vocabulary word).

Continue reading “Building Habits of Privacy Into the Conversation & the Curriculum” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, digital health and wellness, parents and technology

Building Habits of Moderation into the Conversation & the Curriculum

Posted on April 2, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Screen Shot 2016-04-01 at 11.28.15 AM — 21st Century Vocabulary Words — Moderation

When my brother and I were growing up in the Midwest, my dad had a big sign — about one foot by two feet — with the word MODERATION. The sign sat in the living room, just off the study, so that it was impossible to miss when we were watching television, reading, doing our homework, playing games, eating, and entering or leaving the house. Dad’s goal was for us to think as often as possible about self-regulating and managing what we did each day, even when we were even engaged in a favorite (or not so favorite) activity.

Understanding the importance of moderation is increasingly critical today as we live 21st Century lives that center on the media and on the digital devices that we — and our children — carry around all day long. Read an earlier post on moderation.

vocabulary 4 — Check out other posts in this series.

You hear a lot these days about people eagerly pursuing their passions — which is great — but we don’t hear nearly as much about moderation. Understanding how to moderate and, yes, self-regulate daily activities is a digital world literacy skill for everyone at every age. For each child who cannot disconnect from Minecraft or other video games, there’s an adult, often a parent, who can’t put the phone down while taking a walk with kids or who uses the phone while driving. Everyone needs to learn how to moderate and disengage, and possessing these skills helps people develop digital strength and wellness. Continue reading “Building Habits of Moderation into the Conversation & the Curriculum” →

21st Century Learning, digital literacy, keywords, parents and technology, research on the web, searching, searching for information

Keywords Matter: Children Must Know How to Use Them

Posted on March 28, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Maya Bery, a technology/media colleague, who also happens to be a former student, shared this delightful description about two 21st Century children searching for answers.

Two third graders came in this morning looking for the dog books because they’d seen a dog and could not remember what it was called. It was driving them CRAZY!

They looked through the dog encyclopedias to no avail. Searching online for short, fluffy dogs yielded nothing. Then they told me that the dog had short legs. We added that to our Google search and found the answer in two seconds flat. It was a corgi.

Keywords matter!

Continue reading “Keywords Matter: Children Must Know How to Use Them” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, evaluating web site resources, information credibility, parents and technology

Building Habits of Evaluation into the Conversation & the Curriculum

Posted on March 1, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

A few days ago at the public library, I overheard two teachers talking excitedly about a curriculum unit that they were developing. As the discussion progressed, they also began noting their frustration with the cavalier attitudes students demonstrate toward online resources. I was not surprised by the conversation.

Young people who are growing up today seem to navigate effortlessly through digital materials—learning resources, games, publications, websites, and apps—but we adults often forget their limited fluency when it comes to identifying the quality, reliability, and credibility of information. If they are to become good evaluators kids need lots of practice and plenty of time spent observing adult models.

As the educators continued talking, I thought about two 21st Century learning vocabulary words—evaluation and credibility—and mulled over how we get young people, in an age of unlimited content and information, to develop stronger habits of evaluation.
Continue reading “Building Habits of Evaluation into the Conversation & the Curriculum” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, 21st Century teaching, digital wellness, parents and technology

Incorporating 21st Century Vocabulary Words Into the Conversation & the Curriculum

Posted on February 26, 2016March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

To become successful, intelligent, and mindful 21st Century learners, young people need to understand and apply a small group of vocabulary words that now have expanded digital world meanings.

Parents may want to use and talk about these words in conversation as often as possible. Teachers should consciously incorporate them into the curriculum, because the vocabulary knowledge provides young learners with tools that help them consume information more effectively.

As young preadolescents and teens become more comfortable with these words and increasingly able at applying the conceptual meanings they may also gain skill at discerning and then avoiding many of the digital world problems and pitfalls that children encounter.

Continue reading “Incorporating 21st Century Vocabulary Words Into the Conversation & the Curriculum” →