"Shift" is not just a service key...

Shift.   Tab.  Escape.  Backspace.  

Hail to the service keys on a keyboard!  

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Their function is often assumed, even hidden, from conscious thinking.  Sometimes hidden in education is content, curriculum, and teaching strategies.  Or rather, the assumption is that educational institutions are delivering content using methods that are best suited for current trends.

Shift.

Culturally, the Read/Write Web has become a constant transfer of information, a web of collaborative learning and active participation, a resource and a platform that impacts how educators design and deliver content.  

Shift.

The traditional vertical path, delivering content from the teacher down to student, no longer serves cultural needs.  Learning must become a horizontal approach that mimics real life.  Ideally, educators should guide learning activities that place teachers and students side by side, collaboratively building content, examining content, consuming content, and learning from each other.  

Shift.

These trends, this shift, forces educators to re-examine learning theories and methods of instructional delivery to help youngsters, the Net Generation, become responsible digital citizens in a world of collaborative, social learning networks.

Shift. 

Will Richardson  lists 10 Big Shifts occurring in education, shifts that may guide educators in adopting strategies that serve the needs of today's Information Age:

1. Open Content 
2. Many, Many Teachers, and 24/7 Learning  
3. The Social, Collaborative Construction of Meaningful Knowledge 
4. Teaching is Conversation, Not Lecture 
5. Know “Where” Learning 
6. Readers Are No Longer Just Readers 
7. The Web as Notebook (or Portfolio) 
8. Writing Is No Longer Limited to Text 
9. Mastery Is the Product, Not the Test 
10. Contribution, Not Completion, as the Ultimate Goal 

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. 

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How has this shift affected your teaching practice so far?   Shift - My practices revolve around analyzing content with text combined with videos, websites, podcasts, slide presentations, modeling, tutorials, games, images, or music.  Verbal conversation is then guided and focused on the big picture and the little pieces that contribute.  Shift - Conversation on content is created by everyone through websites, blogs, wikis, chats, movies, images, audio recordings and discussion forums - on platforms that allow all learners to read and respond to each other.  Teens have a voice.  Their thoughts count, they're being heard, and peers are listening.   This teaching methodology is empowering.

How do you expect it might affect you in the future?  The possibilities are exciting!  The shift in education is slow, but it is happening.  It has happened in my classroom, and continues to evolve.  Shift - When every classroom in my building is teaching through horizontal conversations that empower students, the online avenues to join cross-curricular groups would grow exponentially and create an incredible plethora of learning networks that would be astounding! 

Have your views changed since you started this course?   Certainly.  It has validated my concern about the need for educators to keep up with cultural and global trends with technology.  Shift - Educators must prepare students for living and thriving in a digital age.  Educators must include digital citizenship skills in their curriculum - netiquette, Internet safety, copyright.  Educators must recognize new literacies this shift demands of all users.

How can you use technology to facilitate this shift in your own classroom?  Shift - Shift - Shift - Students in my classrooms use Moodle, YouTube, Wikispaces, and Blogger.  They use Web 2.0 tools such as Wordle, Bubbl.us, Animoto, Xtranormal, Vocaroo, Make-A-Flake, QR Codemaker, and Aviary.  They use Greenshot, Audacity, Photo Story, and Movie Maker.  They use their voice, they use written reflections, they chat and they use discussion forums.  They create, edit, mix, remix, post, publish, and comment.  They create surveys and grade each other.  And often, they correct me.  They provide meaning, they guide content, and they enrich direction and focus.  They include me.  I include them.