As our students acquire, evaluate, and synthesize knowledge, they use that knowledge to become creators of new knowledge - moving from knowledge acquisition to knowledge production. These two processes are intertwined and critical to student learning. It is in the production and sharing of new knowledge that students demonstrate their understanding of ideas and concepts. It is also in the sharing of new knowledge, that we, as teachers, are able to measure student achievement.
Beginning in kindergarten and through 12th grade, our students must develop college and career-ready skills in communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, innovation, and critical thinking. Successful classroom teachers must know how to select, use, and integrate a variety of technologies to optimize student use of these resources in their learning. The focus of technology integration is not for a teacher to know how to use every available technology tool, but, to know the capabilities of a variety of tools that can be used to support instructional strategies to meet the needs of our students.
This website and the companion presentation, "Students as Knowledge Producers" has been created by the Office of Instructional Technology for the STEM Effective Educator Academy Training, September 2011. The companion presentation can be accessed at HERE and it is also available on Safari Montage. Please direct any questions about the presentation and/or the information on this website to the Office of Instructional Technology, Baltimore County Publics Schools, Maryland at 410.887.8918.
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VoiceThread is one tool that can be used as a collaborative environment to provide students with opportunities to share their critical thinking. |
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Organizing ideas is a proven strategy to help students visualize their thinking. |
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Real time collaboration can help students develop complex ideas. Using Dabbleboard, this Middle School student is working with a High School student at a different location to solve this algebraic expression. The high school mentor is able to provide feedback by interacting in the whiteboard and chatting with the chat tool. |
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Our students are challenged to make meaning of a multitude of information and data. Tools like Create a Graph and Chartle provide a simple way for students to input, display and analyze data. Additionally, students need to be prepared to share data in a visual format when producing their knowledge. In this example, students included a link to a Gapminder animation in a presentation analyzing the relationships between life expectancy and income per person. |
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Scibblemaps is tool that can help students visualize data geographically. In this example, students gathered water quality data and display the data in a Scribblemap. |