21st Century Skills

I thought the information on the website, 21st Century Skills.Org http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf , was a start as far as trying to create goals and a direction for the schools to move towards when they begin the change to incorporating 21st century skills in their districts’ curriculum. I do feel, however, that it will be a long time coming before all schools are able to make that change and close the gap between how schools teach and how businesses work. The technology that businesses are using in the workplace and students are using at home far surpasses the technology that many schools are using today in their districts. The problem with making the change and incorporating 21st century skills into the core content areas is money and age. Schools do not have the proper funding to upgrade their technology tools. There are some schools where students have poor quality text books and unrepaired facilities. To think that these districts will be using the technology and incorporating 21st century skills into their curriculum that is discussed on the 21st Century Skills’ website is being unrealistic. Then, there are teachers who are older and unwilling to change their ways to learn how to use and incorporate the new technology. Just as I believe that not all students will be able to meet the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, I do not believe that all schools will be able to incorporate the amount of technology that is being used in the work force. This change over will be a long process unless proper funding is found and teachers receive sufficient training in the technology tools. We cannot expect older teachers to be given technology tools and then start using them; they need to be trained and warmed-up to the idea.

While reading the information about assessment, I found it surprising that students who are use to typing out their writing as opposed to writing it out may be losing valuable time during the timed test. It is true that people can type a lot faster than they can manually write out, and taking your time to have neat handwriting is not an issue when using a computer. Also, if a student is typing during the test and wants to add or change part of their response they can do it a lot easier than if you were writing it and trying to fit the new information into a tight spot of space. However, in my school district, we write a lot without using a computer. We even practice timed writing several times throughout the year before the state test. Therefore, I believe that students should be able to interchangeably write and/or type effectively to communicate.

The website implies that teachers truly need to make the decision to cross over to the 21st century and incorporate the skills that the students will need for their future careers. I agree that it is important to involve technology into lessons so students are exposed to different degrees of technology, but teachers are limited to what their district can afford and offer. The site also implies that the students who do not learn the skills needed for the 21st century will fall behind and be unable to contribute in the work force (21st century skills.org). It is important to be exposed to technology and be willing to learn and adapt, but I feel this is a scare tactic. There are many blue collar jobs that will not require such demanding skills and if they do, I am sure they will offer some type of training.

As a whole, I do agree with many of the points addressed on the website in reference to incorporating 21st century skills into lessons. As a fairly young teacher, I am willing to make changes to my lessons and expose my students to real-life learning situations. They do learn more and are eager to learn when they can find a need for the knowledge and skills. However, the gap between 21st century skills and how students are learning today will continue to be open until proper funding is available to all school districts and teachers are trained in the use of technology tools.

Recourse:

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf

Blogging in class

I really enjoyed reading everyone's ideas on how to incorporate blogs into their classrooms. Currently no one in my school district uses blogs with the students, so once I finish this course I would definitely like to test it out. Someone in our group had suggested to another that they attempt to begin blogging with just one group of students, so it does not become overwhelming. You can also see where the kinks are with that "trial" group of students. I really like that suggestion and will use just on section of my students at first to try blogging.

Blogging in the classroom

Allowing students to use blogging for an educational purpose would be a lot of fun for my middle school students. They really enjoy making Power Points and presenting videotaped presentations, so blogging would be a step above that for many of them. I teach sixth and seventh grade Language Arts, so blogging could be used to turn our regular portfolio folders into an online portfolio. This would allow students to be able to access their writing at any time and add to it if they wanted after the school year was over. Creating an online forum for one’s writing would definitely motive students to spend more time with the drafting process since their writing would be available for their classmates’ viewing and even their parents. I also like the advantage for teachers mentioned in our reading from the week that “the dog never eats it; it’s either in their blog or not” (Richardson, 2006, p.22).

Another use for blogging could be to enhance the old fashioned pen pal. Two teachers at different schools could develop a common forum where their students would create personal blogs and write weekly posts where they communicate back and forth to one another. Students could practice their writing techniques and incorporate technology in the process. It would also bring further appeal to having a pen pal from a different state or even country since the communication would be more instant than using the old fashion post office method of communication. Maybe students from the two schools would be reading the same novel. In this case, students from the two schools could hold weekly discussion answering teacher generated as well as student generated questions based on the novel. This takes the classroom literature circle to a higher level. Students would not only be discussing with the students in their class, but they would also get to hear the viewpoints from students in another area who might offer a different perspective on issues from the novel. I believe using the blogs would definitely motivate students to continue to read their novel, so they would be able to post on their blog. At first these students are strangers and discussing topics created by their teachers. By continuing the communication over a period of a novel, these students may begin to discuss other topics or interests they have in common, thus creating a friendship through their educational blogging.

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

First Post

The only blog I ever created was for an under-grad class I took several years ago. I viewed a few of the blogging sites and found this one to be very user friendly. I hope to improve my blog as I learn how to use more of the tools provided on the site. I have developed this blog for a graduate class I am taking at Walden University.