Blog Posting #2

"Learning" in the 21st Century is not only changing for students, but it is changing for teachers. The most important aspect of the videos shared for this blog is understanding the lag in our training as teachers to be prepared to teach those eager digital natives showing up in our classrooms. Much of the research that we are doing as grad students has to do with empowering teachers by shifting our academic focus from traditional pedagogy to a global learning environment. These online "classrooms" are full of wikis, podcasts, blogs, avatars, digital storytelling and every other technology innovation that 21st Century learning has to offer. They are exciting places where teaming and collaboration are nurtured, where artistic minds and creative thinkers are celebrated, and where multi-cultural, multi-lingual learners are quickly becoming the norm, not the exception. As referenced by the video, "Learning to change, and changing to learn", this new educational model is different, but it borrows from the best of the past and validates everything that we already know about how humans learn. The authors warn that the "classroom system" is dying and the community system" is thriving in this new global environment, but rightly so.

The percentages from the William Glasser (1998) quote were also an astonishing reminder that many of us are already behind in teaching to the needs of our students. As an art teacher, I think I come very close to teaching to that 80% mark. We see, hear, discuss and experience almost every learning objective in visual art. Often, my students even teach each other through peer review and table collaboration on art projects. But I want to open the door even wider to these students by making better global connections myself. I like the idea of witnessing the "death of (traditional) education" and the "dawn of learning" I like the idea of being "brave" as the authors referenced in the "change" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk

And I want to be the teacher who is not afraid to shift my student's academic experience from the former industrial age model, right through the information age and jump feet first into the collaboration age "puddle" without "rubbers" on. How exciting!

Another website that I have enjoyed as a research tool is Teaching for Artistic Behavior. They have a page devoted to 21st Century Learning as it relates to visual art. It references 21st Century Skills http://teachingforartisticbehavior.org/21stcenturyskills.html

as the most up to date research on this topic, and I agree. The learning and innovation skills list on this page read like a script from the videos we have been perusing within our blog assignment and supports all the reasons that I am so passionate about expanding my digital learning experience - primarily to develop a positive, productive 21st Century learning environment for myself and my students.