This year, I have been breaking down the walls of my classroom in many big ways:
- Kidblog.org
- Global Math Task Twitter Challenge #gmttc
- Global Read Aloud
- Skype
- Sharing Google Drive folders via Twitter
- Seesaw
- Edmodo
First and foremost, digital citizenship skills are truly embedded when sharing and communicating with the world. My students have seen and experienced firsthand how their digital footprints are created each and every time they publish something online. This has allowed me to have many conversations and lessons on only publishing our best work. Now my students put forth more effort in their work since they know it will be seen by an authentic audience.
Collaborating with other students around the world is made possible with the use of technology! To be future ready, students need to know how to communicate effectively, as they could have a job that requires them to work collaboratively with someone across the world! Being a part of the Global Read Aloud and participating in Global Math Tasks each week, my students are given the opportunity to work out math problems and discuss reading with other students beyond our school. With the Global Math Task Twitter Challenge (#gmttc), students can communicate their math thinking and even see how other students solved the same math problem. Great way to collaborate and share our thinking! We read Pax alongside three other 3rd grade classes from California, Nevada, and Canada. My students had practice communicating their thoughts about each chapter with these other students, while also replying to comments made by the other students. This has helped my students to have tolerance for cultural differences while also learning about geography.
Living in a digital world, it is SO IMPORTANT for students to understand and practice how to live and engage in it. School is where it starts to create positive digital interactions for our students to be truly successful and have a great impact on the future. As a teacher, I do all I can to model how to be safe and productive in our digital community. Students are already online at such a young age. We are failing our kids if schools and teachers aren't giving them experiences to practice in our digital world.