My first introduction to Wordle was this past school year where students that I was working with after school had Wordle as an option for homework in practicing their spelling words. Needless to say I was in awe and thrilled to be able ot learn from my students. My immediate thought once I was able to spend time playing with Wordle was to make personalized gift art. After investigating some of the sites that Sandy provided links for in our assignment, I began to think about Wordle in a broader sense. I realized that Wordle could be used for any subject or topic where a visual representation of an idea/concept might impact or make an impression on the individual who is on the receiving end of the visual (whether it be the individual who creates the Wordle or the inidvidual who the Wordle was created for). Some of the ideas I really gravitated to were:

• Character Education (i.e. personal self esteem poster where everyone contributes something positive to say about a classmate and you are really able to see what positive traits are most noticed about an individual)
• Language Arts - word walls, list important ideas in a passage, summarizing skills, pre-reading predictions, character trait analysis, vocabulary
• Content Areas: compare and contrast, defining characteristics, vocabulary, summarizing skills, polls

I would also use a Wordle for problem solving and critical thinking. Inidivduals could create Wordles and the group would then have to decide why a particular Wordle was created and/or what purpose would it serve. You could also ask those who are studying the Wordle "How would you change the Wordle and why?" Depending on the group, I might provide varying criteria for each person to consider when creating their wordle.

Web 2.0 is the next generation (2nd generation) of World Wide Web products that (simply put) facilitates: communication, sharing information, and collaboration (among more technical practices). An interesting piece of trivia that I came across during my exploration is that "Web 2.0" has been declared the 1,000,000th English word or phrase by the Global Language Monitor.
Three important things that I learned about 21st Century Learners is:

• we are all 21st century learners (even my 85 and 88 year old parents)
• we are all better multi-taskers than we were 5 years ago because we are all 21st Century Learners
• the older generation of 21st Century Learners will need to expect shorter attention spans due to fast response times which are a result of the younger generation of 21st Century Learners being so connected to unlimited amounts of information.

What will we do? We will adjust, but we better do so quickly!

The 21st Century Skills that will help the digital natives meet with success and the digital immigrants acclimate are:

• creativity and innovation
• communication & collaboration
• critical thinking & problem solving resulting in decision making
• research & information fluency

BPS Web 2.0 Exploration

While you are exploring, be sure to check out an 8 minute video titled Digital Youth Portrait: Jalen. One way you can access it is by going to the Task One--Exploring page that we placed on our desktops. From there, scroll down to where the question "What are 21st Century Skills?" is asked. Go to the suggested site regarding this question. The last tab on the left hand side of this page is titled Snapshots. The video is on the page you access when you click on Snapshots. This video provided me with a great reference of what the possibilities are when learning in the core academic subjects and 21st century tools come together for a perfect union called 21st century skills.