CONFERENCE SHAREOUT: Preparing Students for the 21st Century

Alan November:
Spoke at length at the idea that our students don’t know technology – They instant message, email, cell phone but have very little knowledge about how technology works, specifically search engine. This needs to be taught similar to any other subject with teach.

Teenage work together – networking. We need to harness their natural collaboration to create resources. This will empower them while teaching them research skills, they can become contributors and mentors. Alan explored a site called Jing for sharing and collaboration. http://www.jingproject.com/
Spoke about the need of students and teacher to understand how search engines work. Kids get distracted online.

Asked Why Wikipedia is among top searches?
The Wikipedia address. Whenever a new article is added another link to the Wikipedia site is added. Currently there are 800,000 links to Wikipedia. Google is like a popularity contest. The more links you have to your site, the more popular you become.
Once you know understand how search engines work you understand how information can be manipulated.
Explored the Google Customized search engine. You can handpick the sites that will be available for research. You can find it under more in Google.

Alan’s site is: http://www.novemberlearning.com/


Will Richardson
http://willrichardson.wikispaces.com/
His presentation is up on this Wiki.

Will spoke about change. How politics is changing by technology, he gave an example of Obama’s online fundraising.
Spoke about how the media is changing and today every person can become a reporter. Will gave an example from the New York Post – every one can comment. He argued that journalism is shifting. 75% of the sources the media is using come from the web.
He spoke about music and how technology has changed the industry.

The key question: How do we compete in this world?

The old model is not working.
Young adults use technology differently. They use technology to communicate. They look at privacy differently. Students come to school and we tell them not to use what they are using on a daily basis. Will argues we are teaching students the wrong skills. Students are being punished for using tools that can support and promote their learning.

Explore his blog: http://weblogg-ed.com/