Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation.  He is also one of the world’s leading speakers with a profound impact on audiences everywhere. We start this lesson by watching this famous 2010 TED lecture video that have been seen by an estimated 200 million people in over 150 countries. His book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (Penguin/Viking 2009) is a New York Times best seller and has been translated into twenty-one languages.

21st century learning means that learners master content while producing, synthesizing, and evaluating information from a wide variety of subjects and sources. Learners demonstrate the 3Cs: Creativity, Communication, and Collaboration. Virtual tools and open-source software create borderless learning territories for students of all ages, anytime and anywhere.

Powerful learning of this nature demands well-prepared teachers who draw on advances in cognitive science and are strategically organized in teams, in and out of cyberspace. 21st Century Teachers work closely with students in their local communities while also serving as virtual network guides, gaming experts, community organizers, and policy researchers. The attached video will helps to understand the needs of The 21st Century Learner.

For some social media starts and ends with Facebook ; however the most impactful social learning solution comes from Google. “The Google Apps for Education” includes Gmail, Docs, Google Drive, Google Sites, and Calendar. In addition, educators get up to 25GB of storage ad-free space per user. More than 20 million students, faculty and staff worldwide use Google Apps for Education.

Becoming a “Google Certified Teacher” not only helps to teach more effectively, it also boosts your own career prospects in this increasingly technology driven learning eco system. This link above will connect you directly to all that Google Apps for Education offers and the attached video resource introduces you the impact you can make using Google Apps.

YouTube recently hit a new milestone: the video sharing website now features more than 1,000 educational channels. You can find a millions of video lessons virtually on every subject to use in your classrooms. It’s the home for the best world has to offer in education such as Khan Academy, IITs and over a thousand others.  

YouTube recently launched YouTube EDU Creator Playbook Guide, which includes videos that outline best practices for online educators to learn from each other. The guide lays out ideas for organizing curriculum videos on YouTube, attracting a bigger audience to educational content you create, and explains how to use YouTube features like annotations and playlists.

Here is a presentation on 10 ways teachers can use YouTube to build a 21st century classroom. YouTube is the best resource to bring educational topics to life. Here you can learn all about to getting started with YouTube.

Tools/Resources such as YouTube are truly transformative that help teachers become better educators. Lets end the section by watching the video produced using iMovie by fellow teachers.

Twitter is fast emerging as one of the most popular ways for teachers, students, and the general public to communicate, share and consume knowledge. It’s becoming a must-have tool in almost every teacher’s toolbox. It’s also the easiest of all implements. It brings the power of real-time communication at your fingertip. Twitter has simply become one of the best places for teachers to collaborate, share solutions to common classroom problems, and discuss education policy. In fact, it might just be the best forum teachers have ever had.

In the attached presentation let’s learn how to use Twitter effectively.  

Facebook is not only the largest, but also by far the most widely used social media channel in education. It has become mandatory to have a Facebook Page for your school. This is where the network learners’ hangout all the time and therefore the best place to catch them. Here is the single point resource on how you can integrate Facebook into your school eco system.

Social Media has revolutionized the way people communicate today; it has spawned a new generation of communication for educators to use. It presents a huge opportunity for schools, universities and other educational organizations to reach out and connect with students and prospective students. This same revolution has a hugely positive potential for the education system to help engage and develop students. Here are some additional resources you can refer to further understand how social media is transforming education, as we know it.

How Higher Education Use Social Media

Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest Case Studies

30 Web Tolls for Teachers

Most importantly you can use LurnQ to create extra curricular lessons for your students to foster continuous learning. It integrates all social media tools in a learning environment.

In case you are really new to the subject it will be a good idea to start with lesson

Social Media – What? How? And Why?

I will continue to update this lesson with new ideas and experiment in the days to come. In the meantime, keep your status updated.