You're a 21st Century Teacher if...

Friday, I spent the day at Essdack with my Tech Integration Group.  They are an awesome group of people who share their expertise, ideas and inspiration.  One of the topics we focused on was the 21st Century Teacher.  A site called Simple K12 posted a list of 21 Signs You're a 21st Century Teacher.  The tasks are things you already do in your classroom, but then took it to the next level with the connection to technology.  After reading over the list, we voted on the top 5 items through Google Moderator.  (Google Moderator allows you to post topics or ideas that people can vote up or down.  We use this each month to decide on the topics we will cover at our meetings.)  From there, we took the top 5 items and created Wallwisher boards for each topic.  We then spent time adding ideas, tools and suggestions for supporting teachers to get there.  Here our boards and suggestions:

Created with Wallwisher

http://wallwisher.com/wall/97lhhagh7o

Created with Wallwisher

http://wallwisher.com/wall/llaqcd8lh7

Created with Wallwisher

http://wallwisher.com/wall/nmvjjbqy99

Created with Wallwisher

http://wallwisher.com/wall/g9gvffjham

Created with Wallwisher

http://wallwisher.com/wall/issvht25m0

These boards are still being added to, but they are a good starting place.  Personally, I had used Wallwisher in the past, but wasn't a huge fan.  I started using another tool, Lino, which was like Wallwisher.  Both are electronic bulletin boards centered around a specific question or topic.  Then you open the board so others can contribute resources to the topic or answer the posted question.  Either tool would be great for exit questions, brainstorming for a project or paper or collecting online resources centered around a topic.  I could see using this as part of a web evaluation activity.  The students have to find a reliable website related to a specific topic everyone is researching.  They could give the link and explain how they know it is a reliable site.  Here is a sample Lino canvas I used this summer during one of our training sessions:

After working with the new Wallwisher, I'm going to give it another try.  Although Wallwisher doesn't have an app for the iPad, I can still go to the internet on the iPad and use Wallwisher to create new boards or respond to boards.  Tom Barrett has a slideshow showing several interesting ways to use Wallwisher in the classroom.  On his blog, Sean Banville provides 105 ideas for using Wallwisher in the classroom.

So, are you a 21st century teacher?  Are there any signs that you use in your classroom already?  Do any of the signs inspire you to try something new in your classroom?