21st Century Skills

This week our focus in class has been 21st Century Skills.  21st Century Skills are the skills that students will need to succeed in the future.  They are made up of the thinking, collaboration, and work skills that students will need to be able to use in the workplace.  To learn more about 21st Century Skills I looked at the website of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills at www.p21.org.

After browsing the website, I have learned a lot about 21st Century Skills; how they were created, ways to implement them, and so much more.  The website was easy to navigate and easy to follow.  There was information about the partnership, the Strategic Council, what the partnership does, what 21st Century Skills are, states that are involved, exemplar schools, and news and events.

I was surprised to learn who the members of the Strategic Council were and how the partnership was started.  There are members on the Strategic Council are from large companies such as Disney, PBS, and LEGO.  I also found 21st Century Skills Maps for each academic area.  These will be very helpful when determining how to integrate the 21st Century Skills into other areas.  

It is essential for students to have exposure and experience with 21st Century Skills.  These skills with give students the ability to be successful in the workforce.  Technology will continue to evolve and it is important that students are able to use them appropriately.  It is also extremely important for teachers to know and use 21st Century Skills because we have a duty to prepare our students for the future.

Overall, I thought this was a very useful website.  It was interesting to learn more about the 21st Century Skills and ways to incorporate them into instruction.  Looking at the educator resources will also be very useful in future.  I highly recommend this website to other educators.

Blogs in the Classroom

     Blogs can have so many different uses in classrooms.  I teach in a Title I room and generally see students for half an hour at a time.  The students I see are in kindergarten through second grade.  This can make it even more difficult to determine a use for blogs in my classroom.  Since I work with such young students and only see them for a short amount of time, I did not feel it was appropriate for them to have their own blogs.
     After some thought, I decided that I would like to use a blog as a place to showcase our work and share what we learn.  This would allow students to reflect on what they learned each week.  It would also allow students to get input from the community.  I would be able to post newsletters and event reminders as well.  A classroom blog could also be a place where the other Title I teachers in the building and I could give parents suggestions for home support.

Grad School

Welcome to my blog!  This is my first experience with creating my own blog.  I am currently a student at Walden University, majoring in Integrating Technology in the Classroom.  I can't wait to continue this journey!