Reaction to Website Partnership for 21st Century Skills

While exploring this site, it was interesting to find that they are advocates for making sure our students are ready for the 21st Century. The belief is that for United States students to be able to compete in our global economy, they need the three Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic) and four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation).

Partnership for 21st Century (P21) Students incorporate systems with outcomes that students should master in order to succeed in work and life in the 21st century. The critical systems for students to master are 21st century standards, assessments, and curriculum. Their instruction, learning environments, and teacher professional development must be aligned to produce a support system that produces 21st century outcomes for today’s students.

Honestly, I didn't exactly think any of it was earth shattering. Basically it says that our education system has fallen behind and needs to use technology in order to bridge the gap between what students do in school and what they are expected to do in the work force. Their mission is simply to create a partnership between education and businesses in order to accomplish this goal that is important to both factions. Schools want to produce desirable workers while businesses desire workers with real world skills. It makes sense for the two to come together and partner up in order to achieve these goals.

Nothing on the site really surprised me. I was disappointed at the small amount of resources. I didn't see anything to disagree with. It's pretty much common sense. The problem I see is in how teachers are being educated. When I was getting my credential I knew that some of what we were being taught was obsolete, but I could not make my professors understand. There was a disconnect between what we were being taught and reality. Until the Universities get on board with the new way of teaching, new teachers will not be part of the catalyst for change that they could be. Some individuals will be advocates for technology, but that means 1 or 2 teachers per site. Many teachers are resistant to change, so it will be an uphill battle for technology to receive the place it deserves in our classrooms. A big part of that struggle comes down to money. If you can either have technology with 40 students or less technology with 20 students, teachers will take the lower number of students over the technology.

As far as implications for my students goes, I believe that their lives will be heavily influenced by technology but that they will receive more exposure the older they get. If their middle and high school teachers utilize the technology, then they will be prepared for their careers. However, I have heard that the elementary teachers in my district use more technology than the middle and high school teachers do. We are only this year working on having grades available online and creating a standardized report card. As a teacher I will have to make adjustments to my teaching style as I receive new bits of technology to incorporate into my lessons. I really believe that the publishers will be the ones held to bringing technology into the classroom since I have to teach whatever program we adopt. That means whatever the publisher does, I can also do in the classroom.

Using blogs in my classroom

First of all, I am a second grade teacher, so I teach reading, writing, math, social studies, science, art, and P.E. to 7 year olds. The socioeconomic status of my classroom is poor. I only have 2 out of 22 students that have computers at home with internet access. We do have a school website, so I post things to it that are intended more for their parents. This is because many of the parents are able to access the website from their work.

Therefore I do not believe that blogs would be effective for my students. I would use it more to interact with their parents. It would be a place where parents can interact about classroom learning and homework. As parents have questions I am often able to respond to them in writing, but a blog would allow me to reach more people at one time.

I could see utilizing a blog and having many different topics where primarily parents, but also students could get online and share thoughts or ask questions. I could showcase student work if I were able to proceed with the comic strip idea. I also like the idea of maybe using a blog to post children's writing samples with grades and explanations so parents know what their child should be capable of. To me, my students are too young to safely navigate the internet without adult supervision and the lack of technology in their homes would not make it feasible for them to communicate online. They are also in need of typing lessons. If my students were older I would most likely use blogs for instant communication between different periods and as a showcase for student work. As my students are, blogs would be more effective for the parents than for the students.

Computer Fits + Pixton

Okay, so Technology sometimes give me fits. I think I'm doing everything right and then suddenly, something doesn't happen that I think should happen. Case in point was I tried to comment on another blog. I thought it was great, but the spam blocker made you do a math problem. It was basic math, so I didn't add incorrectly. When I posted my response it sent me to a page that said I couldn't do math. I tried word form as well as standard form for the number and I just couldn't make it work for me. However, I did copy my response, so you can read what I wanted to post and then visit the site I tried to post to.

Here's what I tried to post:
Wow! I too am an elementary school teacher. I could definitely see creating a comic strip as a class in order to teach the kids how to do it. After we created a few as a class I could see putting students in groups to create some. By the end of second grade, we could have quite a few posted to our classroom website. It would be an interactive way of testing expository knowledge. Since I can see primary students creating one as a class and then as a small group I could definitely see the potential this has for older students. It could be an excellent homework assignment when students study history or science. I don't see math or English being quite as successful though those teachers might find a way to make it work. http://teachertechblog.com/student-made-comics-with-pixton/378/