What to teach in the 21st Century?

Nowadays we are bombarded with plenty of information; sometimes we even have the feeling that teachers are no longer needed because if we want to cultivate our intellect, we only have to google what we want to learn. As a result we need to ask ourselves as future teachers the following question: What is the role of the educator in this reality after all?  
I would say that one of the roles of the teacher should be to provide students with elements that can help them to develop critical thinking towards the world they live in.  According to this video taken from YouTube titled “Teaching in the 21^st Century” (video below), the educator has to guide the students and help them search for information that is reliable, meaningful and relevant in their environments. For example, teachers may give the students a list of links -analyzed before suggesting them- that they can visit so as to complete a task given. After that, teachers can ask students a series of questions to help them be critical towards the information. This is mainly the role of the educator in this process of surfing the web.

Another question that is also important to be answered is: What are the aspects that a teacher should consider when evaluating a website?  I clearly understand that the teacher should provide the students with reliable links. Now, the doubt is what makes a website reliable? Taking into consideration what we -my classmates and I- mentioned in our lessons, I would share with you  a list of items to consider when evaluating a webpage:

• The authors of the page.
• The lay-out: how the information is presented in the page.
•  The font chosen.
• The images used.
• The appropriateness of the language for a school context.
•  If there are evidences that the information in the webpage is gradually updated.
•  Pay attention to the purpose of the webpage.

These are some of the most important points to bear in mind before suggesting a link to the students.

Thanks for reading,

I will be posting soon J

Do we have what it takes?

Hi everyone! I am going to share with you a video that I believe will make us feel aware of the teacher we should be in our not-so-distant future to fulfil our role effectively in the 21st Century. We have to be open-minded enough to understand that we will arouse the students' interests by using the media that they are so acquainted with. We are preparing our students to their future, are we really able and "equipped" to do that? To make them active learners to communicate effectively in this digital world that moves at a rapid speed? Let's think over what we will do for these digital native students.