Reading Response #3

1. Discussion on what should be considered in finding “the Big Idea” for a project.-When doing a project, you need to consider finding the "big ideas" or the "main ideas". These are key concepts, words, meanings, or at times people within the text that you are covering. By finding these, you are able to start to think of how they apply to the text and world around you. That makes it easier to do projects, if you have the main ideas.
2. Discussion on the 2lst Century skills.-21st century skills are designed to make one go beyond subject matter and look at the skills, tones, and mind-sets that projects may have. One way to help students to accomplish this is by using the Blooms categories of objectives: Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and create.
3. Discussion on the 21st Century literacies.-21st century literacy is being able to be an independent, informed, and useful member of society with the technology around you. You can help students become literate in this sense by using "true-to-life projects"(pg.49 Reinventing project-based learning, Boss&Kraus). These projects allow one to become literate of the world around them through the use of real life situations.
4. Discussion on each of the essential learning functions.-The ISTE NETSS addresses the manner of becoming more skill-full of technology in this digital age. NETSS focuses more so on the ability to be creative and innovative with technology in school and work. 
5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.-These concepts are very useful to our project, as we will need to find the big ideas for our project so we can help apply them to the world and text to our students. By doing so it can spark an interest in the students to want to learn more. We also use the NETSS, in that our projects are done in a manner that help keep us up to date with the technological advancements of our time, as well as prepare our students for the innovations of technology down the road.