21st Century Teacher

Susan Grover, professor of English at Brigham Young University, is a proponent of transformational technology integration, however, she cautions, “In contemplating the future of educational technology, I question the role technology can and should play in the classroom. Educational specialists tell us that learning through experience is highly effective and that technology will facilitate this teaching method. But how can I more effectively use technology to provide experiential learning opportunities for my students?” (Grover, 2006). We as educators are consumers of technology for our students and must build a mental framework of technology being a mode of expression in learning rather than “just another thing” or as a novel gimmick.  However, having technological resources and access does not guarantee of quality learning experiences enriched by being able to communicate to an audience in another country, another classroom, or in another language. What about being able to...

Recently I attended the regional conference for TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) in Austin, Texas, and the air was rich with new tools, new approaches to marrying tools ("mash-ups") for new outcomes, and how futurists see new tools emerging in all avenues of our lives.   I found myself eagerly scanning my program for cutting-edge ideas and thinkers. I found that something called "Mixed Reality" was emerging...a blend of virtual reality and augmented reality...was a major strand in the conference, with a compelling group of speakers and presenters who were from the computer industry, advertising, medicine, and education!  I knew what virtual reality was, but what about augmented reality? I'd only seen it in advertising. Was it really growing in popularity and not a fad?  So how does a compelling, very highly engaging technology support classroom learning? In connecting our students to being able to see beyond what they see, which is w...

In my last post, I talked about the excitement surrounding the use of virtual reality tools in the classroom to make content-design more engaging.  The real-world application of these tools is growing, including that of changing medical and social treatments as we age. We looked at it from the perspective of the instructor utilizing the technology in the classroom, but what about our students who wish to create a virtual experience to share? Enter, CoSpaces, a web-based application whose user-interface is friendly, easy-to-use, and works with any web-enabled device. Students are able to use CoSpaces to interact with their world and bring the world into the classroom:   https://cospaces.io/  Want to see what students are creating? Our students readily participate in new experiences, and the opportunity to create virtual experiences that express their own identity and connect with the world beyond their classroom is deeply rooted in real-world applications. The...

Just ten years ago if you said "virtual reality" to a student (really, even to your colleagues), they might have responded with their best stab at what they could remember from a Philosophy class. Little did anyone really know (even the programmers) that teachers would jump at the opportunity to include what equated to "stepping into the machine" a la "Tron" in order to experience things previously unavailable to our classrooms.  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/explore-ancient-egypt.html The popularity of virtual reality as a medium and a mode has exploded for entertainment (think video games and short movies), for travel (Yes! You CAN take your kids to the pyramids of Egypt or even to time travel to 17th century colonial period society!), medicine (Want to know how to travel the bloodstream as a corpuscle?), and for reimagining their surroundings in ways that enable them to communicate their identities and ideas.  Museums are now buil...

A lot has happened since we last saw each other. Don't be mad. I've been working on another blog. Yes, I know, I left you out here for a bit on your own, but life changed so much! I'm in graduate school now, and believe it or not, I was encouraged to come back to this venue to explore new tools, new experiences, and how life keeps changing (Imagine!) I'm excited, as there is a whole new audience, I think, and better facets to this blog of mine that may not have existed when I created it in, what...2008? It's nine years after this inception, and I think six years since my last post, so let's get this new phase of the adventure started! We are not just 21st Century Teachers; we are 21st Century Explorers of the Mind. Love it. Let's do this. V :)