Empowering Learners

As I've been following a few professional blogs I am seeing an overall question arising.....How do we empower learners? As teachers we want them to be actively engaged and motivated about what we are teaching them. What can we use in technology to help ourselves teach them to become independent learners? First of all I believe we as teachers need to rethink how we approach learning. In the book, Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools by Solomon and Schrum there is a chapter dedicated to students and learning which agrees with the idea that we have to understand how students learn before we can use specific teaching methods to help them analyze, synthesize, and communicate information. Jane Hart, a fellow blogger, calls it The Smarter Approach to Workplace in which she uses an acroymn to summarize her article entitle State of Learning in the Workplace today.

Social Media In Learning By:Jane Hart
http://janeknight.typepad.com/socialmedia/atom.xml

I also have been enjoying learning a little more about Curriculum 21 which I first learned about on the Langwitches blog. It is all about why our K-12 curriculum has to change to relfect new technologies and allow for globalization. Heidi Hayes Jacobs introduces Curriculum 21 Essential Education for a Changing World. This concept goes hand in hand with empowering our students to learn.

Langwitches Blog:
http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/03/12/empower-students/


Curriculum 21:
http://curriculum21.com/index.php?path=/home/book

Link to Amazon to purchase Curriulum 21 By: Heidi Hayes Jacobs:
http://www.amazon.com/Curriculum-21-Essential-Education-Changing/dp/1416609407/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275092286&sr=8-1