Chapter 3: p. 43-57

When searching for the “big idea” in a project, it is important to envision what you want the ending product to look like. We want to stray away from predictable and generic projects, and strive for understanding the importance that allow for students to directly connect with frames of reference, interests, and experiences. We need to be able to prove the project’s relevance in real life. The mentality we all need to have is “hands-on, minds-on”, that take into account diverse interests with real-world contexts. By taking thinking into unfamiliar territory, everyone will create a learning community that will help students grow together. 21st Century skills stretch student’s intellectual muscles in ways that traditional learning activities may not. There are three in particular concepts: analyze, evaluate, and create. When analyzing, students must: examine, explain, investigate, characterize, classify, compare, deduce, differentiate, discriminate, illustrate, and prioritize. When evaluating, students must: judge, select, decide, justify, verify, improve, defend, debate, convince, recommend, and assess. Lastly, when students create, they must: adapt, anticipate, combine, compose, invent, design, imagine, propose, theorize, and formulate. 21st Century Literacies allow projects to prepare learners for the world beyond school. We live in a time where we are all digital-age learners and it is a necessity that we use a wide range of skills to be able to successfully survive in the ever increasing digital world. Literacy really boils down to learning to be independent, aware, and productive citizens. There are eight selected learning functions: ubiquity, deep learning, making things visible and discussable, expressing ourselves/sharing ideas/building community, collaboration, research, project management, and reflection and iteration. In ubiquity, students learn to be more mobile and learn wherever they are, whenever they want and more frequently, with whomever they want. In deep learning, students are required to navigate and sort, organize, analyze, and make graphical representations in order to learn and express learning. In making things visible and discussable, students show rather than tell. They use different types of multimedia to express an idea or thought. In expressing ourselves and sharing ideas, students use personal interaction, such as blogs, to express thoughts. In collaboration, students learn to learn together. In research, students use the Web as a resource in searching for information. In project management, students learn to manage time, work, sources, feedback from others, drafts, and projects during projects. And lastly, reflection and iteration, students learn to examine their ideas from all sides and from other points of view. They learn to “put their thoughts on the table” and being able to look back at past thoughts and opinions. I see many connections from this chapter that are incorporated into my group’s topic/project, such as expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community because in our virtual penpals we will be using personal interaction to interact with other classrooms around the United States. They will also be using deep learning through their collection of data and deciphering the similarities and differences between their “square” and another classroom’s square somewhere else in the world.