Do What I Say -- Not What I Do?

Kids are pretty savvy truth-seekers.
If an adult tells a child to do something but does the opposite in practice, the child will follow the action not the command.

Tell a kid to read and then put on the television -- and you don't create a love of reading.
Tell a kid to eat spinach and then stuff a hot dog in your mouth and guess what they will choose to eat?

Kids who grow up in homes where there's no obvious regard for learning, where commands to learn are given but seldom demonstrated, have a tough time.

Some of the enthusiasm for using games to spur learning comes from this: put kids in an environment where they naturally go (namely an online game) then give them an opportunity to natively learn skills you want them to learn (such as reading or math).  

 That suggests an important clue about using technology: we need to figure out which tools are appropriate for what kids. In other words, emphasizing games may not be as essential for kids with basic skills as for kids who are really struggling. We give early writers a pencil with an eraser; we give more sophisticated writers a pen. We should now understand enough about technology and about learning to give kids the tools appropriate to their skills and needs. But only if we have a way of organizing the tools so that we can easily find the pens from the pencils.

The Value of 21st Century Skills

Oracle's Thinkquest is circulating a paper on the value of teaching 21st century learning skills. They've boiled it down nicely:

Learning projects:

* start with a Big Question, an essential question, usually from the real world
* are central to the curriculum so learning is tied to standards
* include a variety of activities (over a long time) designed to explore the big question
* requires collaboration (inside and outside the school)
* asks students to take the initiative
* involves the use of technology to extend students capacity for research, analysis and collaboration
* culminates in a product that requires students to communicate results

What Lucere is doing: essentially modeling project learning for teachers. Here's how it plays through:
* Big Question: How do you use the tools you have to tackle a Big Project?
* resources should be tied to the curriculum
* there are plenty of activities over time
* there's a huge need for collaboration (involving both children and adults)
* technology is an essential tool (not the end all in itself)
* the product: cool classroom projects

Time to get building!