21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, digital learning, libraries, reading

It’s Summer: Take this Quiz and then Visit Your Local Library

Posted on June 13, 2014June 13, 2014 by Marti Weston

Pew Internet Libraries — Click to visit the Pew site and take the quiz.

It’s summer and if you and your children — those digital kids you are raising — are not regular library users, you should be. Almost any teacher will tell you that children who regularly use libraries develop better and more sustained reading habits. More significantly, I’ve observed that my 21st Century students with public library habits are often more critical and thoughtful users of digital materials, whether they use those digital materials at home, school, or even away from adult supervision.

No matter where you are located this summer, a library is probably nearby. Moreover, in addition to great books, many public libraries provide excellent tutorials on searching, evaluating resources, and digital commonsense. Be sure to visit.

Continue reading “It’s Summer: Take this Quiz and then Visit Your Local Library” →

21st Century Learning, collaborating with kids, digital kids, digital learning, parents and technology

10 Digital Summer Projects for Parents and Kids: Collaborate!

Posted on May 25, 2014June 20, 2015 by Marti Weston

Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime.

Yup, it’s almost summer 2014!

With less frenetic schedules the summer months are a good time to learn more about the digital whirl that’s such a huge part of kids’ 21st Century lives. So when school is out, plan to do some connected world exploring and learning together, concentrating on projects that can help family members — children and their parents — figure out even more about digital life.

Below are 10 family digital project summer suggestions — all activities require collaboration — to consider for the upcoming vacation. Note: Be sure to collaborate on these projects so that adults and children make meaningful contributions.

Ten Summer Digital Projects for Families Continue reading “10 Digital Summer Projects for Parents and Kids: Collaborate!” →

21st Century Learning, digital citizenship, digital learning, digital learning resources, educating digital natives, online learning

Action Words that Describe Digital World Learning

Posted on April 15, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Can we teach pre-adolescents and teens to reflect on what’s happening as they use digital world tools and interact with online content? Can we help them understand more about what they are doing when they work and play online?

Educators often provide a checklist or rubric for students to use as they work on assignments or projects. A rubric usually contains editing specifications, project requirements, resource documentation, and expectations — all for students to consider while completing the work.

Now I’ve discovered that Mia MacMeekin over at the An Ethical Island blog offers what I think of as a digital learning graphical rubric. The easy-to-understand graphic features World Wide Web nouns and action verbs that describe the ways people encounter, process, and use online information. MacMeekin thinks of her infographic as a digital citizenship tool, but it’s much more than that. The chart offers educators with opportunities to ask questions as they teach, and more importantly, expect students to answer them. Continue reading “Action Words that Describe Digital World Learning” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, connected learning, digital kids, digital learning, digital literacy, digital world conversations

Innovative Teaching: How on Earth Do We Get Started?

Posted on March 19, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Years ago as a beginning teacher, I asked one of my University of Chicago professors how it was that my mentoring teacher seemed to do everything at once — teaching one group, keeping an eye on other parts of the classroom, and continuously but quietly communicating with everyone in the room — all at the same time. She even knew when a student some distance behind her was not completing the assigned task.

“She acquired those skills step-by-step,” my professor replied.

Today as we cope with the challenge of transforming our teaching skills to make what goes on in our classrooms applicable to the ever-changing world of digital information (a.k.a. innovation or 21st Century learning), many of us are renewing our commitment to lifelong learning as we explore and acquire a range of new skills and behaviors. We are learning, step-by-step, how to teach differently and stretch ourselves in ways that help students access, process, and use information in innovative but sensible ways. Continue reading “Innovative Teaching: How on Earth Do We Get Started?” →

21st Century life, apps, digital devices, reviews

A Few Apps for Parents to Learn More About

Posted on March 13, 2014April 10, 2014 by Marti Weston

Check out these apps. Just two months ago, when presented to a group of parents, some of these were not on the radar for preadolescent and teen digital life. I’ve linked each to an article. For additional reviews, but not for every app, visit the Common Sense Media App Review Page.

Poof

hide mobile phone apps

4Chan

image bulletin board – pretty good up front rules

Whisper

share secrets

Wanelo

social media shopping

Yic Yac

anonymous texting

Rumr

more anonymous messaging

Secret

share with friends secretly

Pheed

share everything, including video, pretty good rules

21st Century parenting, connected learning, digital kids, digital life, family conversations, Internet statistics, parents and technology

Amaze Digital Kids with Internet Statistics!

Posted on February 19, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Do you wish you could amaze the digital kids in your life with trivia or fun facts about the connected world?

For the past couple of years, the Royal Pingdom site has posted a yearly overview of Internet statistics. The post, Internet 2012 in Numbers, shares some interesting figures, and they will indeed help you amaze the digital natives in your life. Moreover, these statistics can serve as excellent conversation starters and provide good context to help connected learners understand more about the size and scope of the digital world that they take for granted.

Here’s a sampling from the 2012 post. By the end of the year the Internet featured:

425 million active Gmail users
635 million web sites
51 new web sites added during the year
246 million domain name registrations
2.4 billion Internet users and 565 million of them are in China
175 million Tweets per day
40.5 years as the average age of a Facebook user
4 billion hours watched on YouTube per month

Check out the many other stats and some nifty graphs. Remember, though, that the statistics are from 2012. Royal Pingdom has also compiled numbers for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, so you can have some fun comparing and contrasting the numbers from year to year (and watching them grow). The site has not posted statistics for 2013 – at least not yet.

21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, digital change, digital kids, digital life, Internet - the Beginning

1981: A Quaint View of the Connected World to Come

Posted on January 25, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

You will want to watch and smile over this video of a 1981 San Francisco area television report describing the early use of online media. Illustrating how far we have come in the connected world, it’ a great video to share with the digital kids in your family! Charming and quaint and posted over at Wimp.com. Enjoy!

N.B This video requires Adobe Flash so the video does not work on an iPhone or iPad.