Gifted and Talented in the 21st Century

Please update your RSS feeds and bookmarks.  Gifted and talented in the 21st Century is now at www.talentedandgifted.net 

Here are a few more video competitions that might appeal to GT students.

C-Span is hosting an annual documentary competition inviting students to create a 10 minute video on issues that affect the nation. The video must include C-SPAN footage but should also include student exploration of the issue. This would make a great independent or small group project for middle school students who have mastered grade level benchmarks. There are examples of prior year winning projects on their web site. These examples are great models for gifted students to see and think about.

The World Affairs Challenge, challenges students to think about their relationship to the rest of the world. The 2008 theme is Global Health. Students living near Denver, Colorado or San Francisco, California can participate in the full program. Students who are not near one of the challenge cities can participate by submitting a video.

Gifted students continue to amaze and inspire me. Today I came across the blog of a gifted high school student. I spent some time reading his blog posts and found him to be an articulate, well adjusted high school student. His post on 7 sure fire ways to alienate a teacher is insightful and to the point. All gifted students should read this post; it may just save your relationship with a teacher. I really love his post on Blogging for gifted kids. I am starting a new category on my blogroll The Blogs of Gifted Students. If you know of a gifted or talented student who is currently blogging, please post a link to their site. Let’s get gifted kids thinking about how they can use a blog.

I’d love to hear from gifted students who are blogging for fun.  What are some of the things that you are blogging about?  What do you enjoy most about blogging?  Be sure to post a link to your blog so we can share some of your thoughts.

Steve Hargadon interviewed a 14 year old, Arthus, who has been blogging on Educational Technology . It’s so great that Arthus has been able to use Web 2.0 technologies to connect with others in his area of passion.  He has found an authentic audience to respond to his thoughts, and to help him continue to explore his area of interest.   Reading Steve’s interview with Arthus and then Arthus’s blog really supports my thoughts that GT kids need Web 2.0 technologies to connect with mentors, like minded peers, and high level content. 

Technology continues to change the way the world functions.  Tech President joined forces with the New York Times, and MSNBC  to launch 10Questions.com, an online presidential debate that’s a fascinating mix of video blogging, tagging and user-generated content.  This is another great way to use Web 2.0 technologies with gifted students. Why not have students brainstorm a few questions to ask the presidential candidates.  Students could vote on the questions to come up with a list of 3 or 4 really good questions. Then play 4 corners, have students select the question that they want to work on.  They create a video of their question and post it according to the rules specified at  10Questions.com .  This is a great way to get students thinking about

1.        What are the big issues in the presidential election this year?

2.      What issues or platforms are they personally concerned about and how do their personal view affect how they view the candidates.

3.      How can they use technology to get involved in the political process?

One common characteristic of gifted students is their intensity.  Gifted students frequently wish to find ways to help others, and perform good deeds.  In Judaism this is referred to as Tikkun Olam, repairing the world.  In the 21st Century there are so many ways for gifted students to become involved in repairing the world.  Activism is just one of those ways.  Gifted students frequently look for important causes to support.  My daughter recently created a cookbook and sold it donating the proceeds to a local non-profit, CSAW, engaged in helping to resettle and support Sudanese refugees in Boulder, Colorado.    

Yesterday was Blog Action Day. Jamais Cascio says “Blog Action Day is an interesting concept: make the environment a topic of conversation by making it essentially unavoidable for people who read blogs. If it’s successful — and in this kind of effort, success is measured not in practical results, but in levels of participation — I’d expect to see this become a regular type of event, across a variety of issues…. We’re still in the early days of figuring out how to use this Web thing for good.”

It’s so simple, gifted kids need to make a difference.  Blogging is easy, fun, and accessible.  We need to encourage gifted students to find a cause, and blog about it.  Others will read their blog, comment, forward the link to the blog to others… the cycle continues.  Students can connect with others interested in the same cause by searching Technorati for other blogs on their cause.  Social action or community service, needs to be part of all GT programs.  Students need it, the community needs it, our future needs it.  Blogging is such a simple way to start, to get connected to others doing good in the world. 

Will Richardson blogged today on a topic very close to home, “supplementing my kids education“.  I have spent years supplementing my kids education, trying to keep them engaged in learning, even when school couldn’t.  Technology is one major aspect of that engagement in our house.  One of my initial blogs talked about my son’s first success in school, his first web site!  This week he is working on a high school science project with classmates using google docs.  Did they suggest this in school?  No, he was talking with me about the problems of sharing a document with 5 other people and the frustrations of one person changing something but not emailing to everyone … You get the picture.  Enter Mom, the technologist, as I’m now being called at home.  Google Docs is now his ‘best friend’.  If only schools would share the technology options with kids.  Productiving, engagement and learning would improve drastically.   

Vickie Davis ’s commented on her blog “I am having students from this year edit the work of last year’s students. This is a great exercise. —The point is that sometimes students should not only create from scratch, but should edit something previous students have done — asking themselves what should be improved. Sometimes asking oneself what is missing is exactly the type of deep learning experience needed. I’m finding I have to work with students on editing. We have a lot of improvement to do…..”

The type of skills needed to do what Vickie suggests are at the higher ends of Bloom’s taxonomy.  These are exactly the types of things gifted students need to do.  

Did you Know? Or Shift Happens

What do you think of this video?  Are we really preparing GT students for the world ahead.  How can we prepare students for a world we can’t even envision?  What are the skills and tools GT student will need to be leaders, to be the next Nobel Prize winners, to be our future?  We need connected, collaborative and authentic learning for all students.  We need to break down the barriers to learning and allow students to discover for themselves. 

I’ve been working with Google Docs and Survey Monkey today and find both to be great tools for the Enrichment 2.0 Network.  I work with PowerPoint 2007 most of the time and am still finding it a bit frustrating working on a PowerPoint and then loosing the formatting and animations when I load it to Google Docs.  My first attempt at a Google Docs presentation is a bit disappointing but hopefully they will get better over time.  I really like Survey Monkey.  I’ve set up a two surveys to get students started in Enrichment 2.0.