Digital Age Best Practices

I did a lesson on natural resources. In the lesson, the students were to research a natural resource and look at what happens to the earth when the resource is removed or used. I would like to improve the lesson by promoting shared expertise with networked collaboration (digital age best practice 1). I think it would benefit the students to work in groups for the lesson and discuss the effects using natural resources has on the earth; I also would like for students to collaborate alternatives to the natural resource they are researching. When students collaborate, it helps them build on their own knowledge and/or ideas by applying it in discussion and by gathering information. If a student has to explain their information to other students it will stengthen an understanding of what they are learning.
This same lesson could be improved by personalizing and globalizing content by making authentic connections (digital age best practice 3). While students are researching how the use of natural resources affects the earth, they could also investigate how it affects people; what happens to where people live, jobs, water sources, etc., . Students could also look globally at where, throughout the world, the natural resources we use come from; imports and exports of resources.
To assess the students using technology, which I did not do in the lesson I have discussed, I could have the students clarify understanding with formative assessments (digital age best practice 6). For the natural resource lesson, students should write a reflection discussing what they learned from the lesson and post it in a class blog or wiki. This would allow me to read what was learned in the students' words and provide other students with the opportunity of gaining knowledge from their peers.