Notes from Millie D

Today was a day that made me think a lot about teaching in the 21st Century and how it is so different than what I was brought up with when I was a student.  We are now preparing students for careers that probably haven’t even been developed yet.  Blah, blah, blah…I’ll blog more about that later in the weekend.  Today my worlds collided (technology, education, and parenting) and the result should be very interesting.

For those of you who don’t know my daughter goes to the same school where I teach (there’s two worlds colliding on a daily basis).  She is in first grade and is developing a lot of confidence as a reader as well as an author (notice I didn’t say writer because she is producing her own books on a daily basis).  Her teacher has put out the challenge to the class to read an appropiate book to their fellow classmates. As a parent I wanted to support my daughter’s work so she would read her book to practice her pacing and diction before reading it to the class.

Tonight, as we were reading together before bedtime I came up with an idea:  why don’t I record her reading the book and turn it into a podcast for others to benefit from.  I told my daughter of the idea and she got very excited.  “You mean I can be published…”  Remember this is a first grader!  She went on like a kid in a candy store.  Then she said, “we can even add background music to the story.”  She was starting to tell the new story, redefining the literacy.  The immediate result from the educator side in me was this new level of motivation to get it right because the audience has now grown.

The educator side in me started the wheels turning; talking to the teacher, making sure the permission slips are accounted for, etc.  I also thought about contacting the author to see if we can use the book’s images for an enhanced podcast.  I guess this is the kind of stuff being an educator in the 21st Century is all about.

Thank you David for making me see through some new lenses today as my worlds collided.

technorati tags:redefining, literacy, warlick, actem, actem06, mained06

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