connected learning – Page 2 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century Learning, connected learning, digital citizenship, digital health and wellness, digital wellness, mentoring digital kids, monitoring kids online, parents and technology, teaching digital kids

Connected World Coaching for Digital Natives? Read Connecting Wisely

Posted on September 7, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

If you teach or think a lot about digital citizenship, take a few minutes to get acquainted with Connecting Wisely in the Digital Age. This new book is simple yet powerful, with content and context for adults who seek to support and mentor 21st Century digital kids. The goal is to help children develop a deeper understanding of the responsibilities that accompany their connected lives.

Authors Devorah Heitner, Ph.D., and Karen Jacobson, MA, base their book on a singular premise — that the 21 activities introduced in their book, when facilitated by imaginative adults, will make a positive difference in kids’ daily online lives. With its flexibility and its focus on adults as connected world coaches and mentors (not lecturers), Connecting Wisely stands head and shoulders above many other curricula in this category. Continue reading “Connected World Coaching for Digital Natives? Read Connecting Wisely” →

blogging, connected learning, digital parenting, ISED, outstanding educator

ISTE 2015 Independent School Outstanding Educator Award Video

Posted on July 4, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

I am honored and, yes, thrilled, that my colleagues in the independent school educational technology community selected me to receive the 2015 International Society for Technology Education (ISTE) Independent School Outstanding Educator Award. It recognizes my work connecting colleagues as the founder and moderator of the Independent School Educators’ Listserv (ISED), my experience mentoring classroom teachers at Georgetown Day School and technology colleagues around the country, the work I do supporting the parents of digital kids, and, of course, my blogging.

In the video below, Larry Kahn, the Director of Technology at Iolani School, presents the award.

21st Century life, connected learning, digital citizenship, digital learning, digital parenting, digital wellness, educating digital natives, parents and technology

10 Digital Wellness Thoughts to Consider

Posted on May 6, 2015March 22, 2019 by Marti Weston

These days everyone talks about personal wellness — those steps that people need to take to remain physically and mentally healthy and strong. But what about digital wellness? Poor digital health affects not only our connected lives but also our physical and mental well-being.

Digital wellness is about fine-tuning the 21st Century skills that we use to work and play in a connected world, and it also involves understanding a number of common myths about the nature of online life. Helping family members take steps to develop digital wellness habits can challenge parents, mainly because many children, pre-adolescents, and teens appear to be far more advanced online consumers than their parents. Underneath the veneer of digital native expertise, however, are a fair number of information gaps. Continue reading “10 Digital Wellness Thoughts to Consider” →

21st Century life, connected learning, social media, social networking

Social Media Week? What a Great Idea for Schools!

Posted on February 23, 2015March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Just imagine what we could teach our 21st Century students and ourselves if, together with students, we organized social media weeks (or days) with presentations, demonstrations, and talks about all aspects of social networking — what’s good, what’s not so good, and what can be done with social media to make our lives better?

More importantly, what if in the process, we educators and some of our social-media-savvy parents demonstrated to students that we understand the role that social media plays in all of our lives while also emphasizing the need to manage and curate our profiles?

Social Media Weeks seek to do just that. The mission of social media week events is to promote a discussion about our always-connected lives, examining how things have changed, how to make the world a better place, and perhaps most importantly, how to learn from our mistakes. Online conferences, offline events, lectures, and dialogues are scheduled during four official social media weeks, held in major cities around the world. Continue reading “Social Media Week? What a Great Idea for Schools!” →

connected learning, digital world conversations, Safer Internet Day

Happy Safer Internet Day 2015!

Posted on February 10, 2015March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Today, February 10th, 2015, is Safer Internet Day.

The good things that happen in the connected world make us safer and more secure because they demonstrate that people are using the Internet well. We all need to think about the “One Good Things.” that make the connected world a better place.

Please encourage your children and students to think about “one good thing” that the Internet has brought to each of their lives.

Read Third Grade Good Things for Safer Internet Day 2015.

International Safer Internet Day website
Safer Internet Day US website

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, connected learning, digital literacy, online education, programming

Learning How to Code: Relearning How to Learn – Report #1

Posted on October 6, 2014February 25, 2015 by Marti Weston

I am learning how to code, and right now it’s hard. With all of the talk about teaching children to code — I agree, but sometimes the world of education goes overboard on our newly recognized philosophies — I decided to organize a small before-school activity using MIT’s Scratch coding site. There was only one problem with my program idea. I only knew a little bit about Scratch.

So I started the morning activity during the second week of school and by day two, a few of the 10-15 attendees (children in grades 3-5) were ahead of me. “What’s a variable?” one of them asked. “Do you know how to make a game where the sprite (the little person on the screen who carries out the coding commands) bumps into a ball?” asked another. My answer in both cases was no. Sure I knew how to do many beginning tasks in Scratch, but not what these children wanted to know.

Now those of you readers who are educators and parents know that kids often take care of things like this by figuring out things for themselves — and my students did just that, experimenting and trying things out — but I wondered, “If these questions were coming up on the second day, what would the second week be like?” I needed to master some new Scratch skills and fast. Continue reading “Learning How to Code: Relearning How to Learn – Report #1” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, connected learning, parents and technology

Do We Support Those Digital-Age Students With Passionate Interests?

Posted on July 11, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Invent to Learn graphic art — Invent to Learn Graphic Art. Click to check out the book.

As my learning activities continue at the 2014 Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute (CMK14) I’ve spent a significant amount of time thinking about young 21st Century connected learners who come to our classrooms with special talents or unusual interests.

Often our classes include students who discover especially interesting topics, and these kids learn more and more until they develop expertise in the area. Sometimes the students go even farther with a subject, developing a passion and spending enormous amounts of personal time looking for more to learn. Last year at my school a fifth grader demonstrated, over and over, his passion for aviation and his all-consuming interest continues to thrive.

Cam Perron is just such a learner (watch his TEDTalk). Continue reading “Do We Support Those Digital-Age Students With Passionate Interests?” →