A Parent's Guide to 21st-Century Learning

Project Based Learning (image from education-world.com) Project Based Learning (PBL) is a great way to teach students content, 21st century skills, and engage them in something fun and educational. I spoke more about PBL in an earlier blog ( and we had some great reader comments (Tech&Learning, May 2009, page 14). Today I'd like to give some tips and ideas on how to get started with PBL in your classroom. First of all, PBL can be used in any classroom, in any subject, at any grade level. PBL does take planning. For instance, I teach physics and developed a project for my classes on structures and stress and strain. Another example of PBL is having the students research a topic and present it to the rest of the class through a multimedia presentation, website, or poster. Start small. Another idea for projects is to look at your school or community and see what they need. Some web resources to get you started:

Abdication of Education: How can we Re-engage Parents? It isn’t a decision that any of us made consciously or willingly, it’s more the result of circumstances, but as a society we have abdicated the education of our children to a specialized segment of society. That segment has taken the responsibility we’ve given it and created an intricately structured system of learning as well as a system of administration of that learning. So now, here we are, dissatisfied with the cost and effectiveness of those systems and wondering what we can do about it. It didn’t happen because we didn’t want to be involved, it’s more the result of the pace of our lives and the structure of the educational system which makes it very difficult to be involved. By the time our kids are teenagers, the closest some of us come to being involved in education is dropping them off at school or a bus stop. Every parent starts out being the most important teacher in their child’s life. Thankfully, other people have realized that same thing are are doing something about it.

Authentic, Hands-on Learning with Career and Technical Education I am a daily witness to outlandish potential and even more incredible reality as I see students fabricating complicated ductwork, reworking the plugs and wires on a V8 engine and interpreting the bitewing X-rays of dental patients. Career and technical education is about differentiated instruction, higher levels of thinking and essential questions. Can it be more? Exploring. When I construct a lesson for my crew, of course I focus on ushering them to comprehend the elements we are exploring. Collaboration to set a course; cooperation and more questioning. How does the career arena compare to its academic counterpart? End product. I remember my education psych class (which I was forced to take when I left the cooking field) and the very last words the instructor offered us. Sampling. "Just keep it relevant and everything else will take care of itself." That was it. And it is all happening in real time.

untitled Seven Ways to Build Your Own Educational Games There are hundreds of places to find educational games and quizzes on the Internet. That said, sometimes you still cannot find quite what you're looking for. In those cases you're better off creating your own games. Here are seven good tools you and your students can use for creating games. Sharendipity makes it possible for students and teachers to quickly create and share simple video games. ClassTools.net is a free service teachers can use to create their own educational games. Purpose Games is a free service that allows users to create custom games, share games, and play games. What 2 Learn is a website offering more than two thousand educational games for middle school and high school age students. YoYo Games hosts hundreds of relatively simple online games created by amateur and professional game developers. Jeopardy Labs is a free service you can use to create your own online Jeopardy game.

untitled Born to Learn ~ You are Born to Learn FrontPage iPad Curriculum Wordplay - Spanish Vocabulary Game Apples4theteacher.com - A Primary Website - Educational Games and Activities for Kids