My 7 Survival Skills, based on Wagner's writing ... Green bullet points indicate my thinking on how I'm incorporating these skills into my project.
Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving -- Students should be curious, wondering why a problem needs to be solved. They should be able to find creative solutions to challenging problems, and work with people who have different ideas to come up with the best solution. Collaboration and Leading By Influence -- Students should have opportunities to work as part of a team, collaborating with people from a range of backgrounds, and influence others to work together toward a common goal. Recognition that failure is a opportunity -- Students need to know it's okay to fail, that failure is an opportunity to make changes as needed in order to solve a problem and recognize that there can be more than one right answer. Drive and Initiative -- Students should be driven to look for new opportunities, ideas and ways to make improvements, and should be taking up those opportunities on their own initiative. Effective Oral and Written Communication -- Students must communicate their thoughts and express themselves effectively, orally and in writing, with their own community and local, national, and global communities. Accessing and Analyzing Information -- Students must be able to gather and think critically about different kinds of information, identify challenges and access information from many different sources. Responsible Use of Technology -- Students must be able to use technology responsibly, ethically, and productively.
- I think the quests I've developed encourage curiosity ... students are not learning specific facts about ancient Egypt, they're learning about the early civilization through Web 2.0 activities. Should there be more and/or different ways? I think I need to build in some type of problem solving.
- students are given the opportunity to collaborate -- but not necessarily working toward a common goal; what they do doesn’t necessarily influence what others do -- can I build that in?
- I was thinking more about my math class when I wrote/adapted this skill. I wonder if this idea can be a part of what I share with the students as they problem solve (that first Survival Skill.)
- I am building in "initiative" by giving students choice in how they work through the quests, and by creating an Experience Points Board and awarding badges (classbadges.com) I hope to encourage "drive."
- I'd like to do this with collaborize classroom. I need help creating meaty questions that students can respond to,
- This is a strength of this project, but at this point I've only had students access one site. I plan to include videos from various sources -- which will hopefully lend themselves to the written communication skill.
- Another strength of this project, I think. Technology is incorporated at every step - google drive (docs, forms), interactive websites, online assessment (lms).