Blog post #4 Week 2-21st Century Skills and Lifelong Learning

             I was teaching a lesson at my church to a group of young women ages 12-17 and about 5 other adult leaders.  The topic was being wary of negative media influences.  Media can have a huge impact on young people’s lives.  If they are pulled into the bad influences of pornography and sharing explicit photos and dialogue, it can have devastating effects.  When I was teaching, I mentioned the fact that the girls were “Digital Natives” and we adults were “Digital Immigrants.” 

            The adults laughed out loud!  I have been inundated with those terms since I have been in this Masters Program, and they make so much sense to me, that it made me smile that they got such a kick out of it.  I realized that as a general rule, most adults haven’t heard these terms before.  I was grateful to read the original article from 2001.  That is eight years ago!  How do we spread the word to the general public?  I am going to post the article on my Facebook page; I would encourage others to do the same. One page at a time!

            Retrieved Sept 12, 2009 from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky - Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants - Part1.pdf

            One of the most important skills that I think we as teachers need to teach is how to use the internet safely, responsibly, and wisely.  I particularly enjoyed the chapter in our text, Web 2.0, that went through the things that we need to teach for online safety and security.  We need to address pornography and online predators to keep children safe.  We need to address copyright issues, being redirected to commercial sites or useless or irrelevant info when searching the Internet. We need to teach ethical behavior online, and get parents involved in knowing how to help their students be smart online.

            An online site made for kids is Net Smartz Kids. Org. Retrieved Sept 13, 2009 from http://www.netsmartzkids.org/indexFL.html.  Kids cannot be redirected to any other sites.  There are games where they learn how to be safe online such as hunting for Potty Mouth Pete.  They learn to defeat him, they should ignore him, turn off the monitor, and tell an adult.  There are tunes they can watch such as “Be Safer Online Rap” which tells them to never give out their information online such as their name, age, or location. There are also many other fun songs. They have videos such as “Beat the Tricks,” about people looking to harm kids can be tricky, online and in real life.  They have games such as “Don’t Open That File,” a computer virus game.  There are many other things available on this site, a great way to help kids learn safety.

            A nice video made with Animoto about Technological savvy teachers is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2j9qw-A0NM&feature=related  retrieved Sept.15, 2009.  It’s a short commentary about how teachers can change the culture of education in the 21^st century through the use of technology and web 2.0 tools.  It’s very important for us as teachers to be learning right along side of our students.  In these fast moving times, we cannot afford to stand still.  How do you keep up on the newest advances teachers?  Let us know, so we can share the knowledge and stay lifelong learners.