Category Archives: Background Information

Inquiry Webinar

Posted by walterc on May 19, 2013 None comments

Teacher-librarians Constructing Understanding through Inquiry is a strategic partnership between the Saskatchewan School Library Association (SSLA), a special subject council of the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation, and the Ministry of Education. The intent is to develop supports for instruction to be used by educators, particularly teacher-librarians, as they strive to understand and actualize their role in an inquiry-based learning environment.

The partnership invited educators to participate in the live webinar series for Inquiry. I was honoured to share ways inquiry can be enriched through the use of technology, such as developing questions, information seeking, reflecting, documenting, assessing, and presenting learning.

An archive of the webinar can be found on the SSLA web site or through the direct link.

The New E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged, & Enabled

Posted by walterc on December 27, 2011 None comments

The use of e-textbooks and other digitally rich content engages students by providing a real-world context for the learning process and allowing learning to extend beyond the classroom walls. — The New 3 E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged and Empowered – How Today’s Students Are Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Learning from Speak Up 2010 National Research Project (Project Tomorrow, April 2011).

21st Century Education – New Brunswick

Posted by berthelotj on April 12, 2011 None comments

Child Driven Education

Posted by berthelotj on April 12, 2011 None comments


If you would really like to hear about how learning takes place…

TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html – Child Driven Education

Who are our Learners?

Posted by berthelotj on April 12, 2011 None comments

A Vision of K-12 Students

Students will use engaging technologies in collaborative, inquiry-based learning environments with teachers who are willing and able to use technology’s power to assist them in transforming knowledge and skills into products, solutions and new information.

(From: A Vision of K-12 Students Today)

What is a 21st Century Learner?

You may have heard the term “digital natives” to describe today’s students and  “digital immigrants” to describe today’s educators.  Teachers are working with students whose entire lives have been immersed in the 21st century media culture.

Today’s students are digital learners – they literally take in the world via the filter of computing devices:  the cellular phones, handheld gaming devices, PDAs, and laptops they take everywhere, plus the computers, TVs, and game consoles at home.

A survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that young people (ages 8-18) mainline electronic media for more than six hours a day, on average.  Many are multitasking – listening to music while surfing the Web or instant-messaging friends while playing a video game.

Even toddlers utilize multimedia devices and the Internet with tools such as handheld video games like Leapster and web sites such as www.PBSkids.org and www.Nick.com. Preschoolers easily navigate these electronic, multimedia resources on games in which they learn colors, numbers, letters, spelling, and more complex tasks such as mixing basic colors to create new colors, problem-solving activities, and reading.

However, as Dr. Michael Wesch points out, although today’s students understand how to access and utilize these tools, many of them are used for entertainment purposes only, and the students are not really media literate.

We need to use the tools to enable our students to become truly media literate as they function in an online collaborative, research-based environment – researching, analyzing, synthesizing, critiquing, evaluating and creating new knowledge!

(From: http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm)

Videos To Watch