Thing 23 - You Made It!

As I look back on the 23 Things, the biggest change in my thinking is how I view the classroom. The current model that we educators use is outdated, limits the inclusion of current technologies, and relies too heavily on the Industrial Age priorities. As I watched the video, 2 speakers gave me a great set of guidelines for the classroom. First I was truly inspired by one speaker's summary of 21st Century set of literacies:

• Do students know how to find information?
• Do students know how to validate it?
• Do students know how to synthesize it?
• Do students know how to leverage it?
• Do students know how to communicate it?
• Do students know how to collaborate with it?
• Do students know how to problem solve with it?

I also was struck by another speaker's summary of necessary skills for the future workplace. He stated that students "will being doing work that calls on their:

• artisitc abilities
• abilities of synthesis
• abilities of understanding context
• abilities of working in teams
• abilities to be multidisciplinary and multilingual and multicultural."

These guidelines rely upon Web 2.0 skills which are innate skills for my students but skills that I have to continue to learn, practice, and apply to my instruction and my students' learning. It is comforting to remove the mystery of the Web 2.0 and actually dig in to find useful applications in the classroom. Some of the most useful "things" for my Spanish language classroom include the use of podcasts for authentic language exposure and the social bookmarking as means to make all of my useful Internet tools available to my students. I also see potential in creating a blog about our classroom. Professional development with my peers will start with the Wiki I made for our textbook adoption, my del.icio.us bookmarks, and eventually our PLN. My challenge will be to find avenues to continue to discover the new tools as they develop in the digital world. I had no idea that some of the sites and resources introduced in this class existed. I am not sure how I continue to find out about all that is developing but hopefully my RSS feeds to the education technology sites will be a starting point. As I approach the halfway point in my teaching career, I am very invigorated to have so many new tools to keep me current, inspired, and relevant to my students.