Technology is a huge part of our students’ lives. Students all over the world have access to knowledge, resources, and experts to help them learn in rich ways and accomplish great things. The Internet and social media provide learners with a worldwide audience in which to share their ideas, passions, innovations, thoughts, and brilliance. The Internet and social media also presents many influences that can negatively impact our physical, mental, spiritual, psychological, emotional, and social well-being. This is why teachers need to challenge students to find the strength to act nobly and use technology to make a positive impact on the world. In my book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies with EdTech Missions, I introduce mission minded learning. Students are presented with a choice of digital missions with real world impact instead of typical homework or tasks. Participants in my current free online course, The Goal-Minded Teacher MOOC (#EduGoalsMOOC), designed learning missions this past week to inspire their learners. You can still join this free course and complete the tasks. The learning missions were designed with several free web tools, including Google Slides, Genial.ly, Buncee, Canva, Glogster, and Google Docs. See a few participant missions below for a range of subjects and age groups and discover more in our Pinterest board. Learning missions generally include these fields- a Mission Student Challenge statement, a brief Mission Description, a Mission Overview, Objectives, Purpose, and Recommended Tools and Resources.
Get your copy of Hacking Digital Learning, The 30 Goals Challenge, or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, ShellyTerrell@gmail.com!
- Mission: Plan a family trip to a city and read more here
- Mission: Plan a meal to prepare for your family and read more here
- Mission: Create your own word problem and read more here
- Mission: Represent DNA replication with wool and cardboard and read more here
- Mission: Create an ebook for a classmate
- Mission: Create a video tutorial to teach peers to play your favorite song
- Mission: Teach your peers natural numbers with a video lesson plan, which includes a diagram and an avatar
- Mission: Work with a partner to create a “breaking news” broadcast video informing the general public of a key battle in the Civil War
- Mission: Find out the news the year you were born
- Mission: Collaborate with peers on a story to be entered in a short story competition
- Mission: Research and design a report about an endangered species
- Mission: Be a reporter for a day
Challenge: Get a copy of my book and transform one of your tasks into a learning mission.