Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I took some time and looked over the website for Partnership for 21st Century Skills. At first glance, it was colorful, informative and educational.

• What is your reaction to the site?

This website has a lot of information dealing with 21st century skills. The resources are great and very insightful. The history of the website lists a fair amount of top name organizations that have contributed. At first glance the website looks to be overwhelming with all the information.

• What information on the site surprised you?

While I was searching the site, I came across a tab labeled as Strategic Council Members. I was surprised at all the large name companies that were listed. I was impressed on how many large companies wanted to be involved in the teaching and helping of the skills for the 21st century. Another item that surprised me was that Wisconsin was on the state initiatives list. I am proud and excited to know that Wisconsin is on board with helping students into the 21st century.

• Did you disagree with anything on the site?

One thing I disagreed with was the amount of information on the site. Even though the majority of the information is informative, it was just overwhelming and I did not know where to start looking and sometimes what I was looking at. When someone is not familiar with the information presented on a site and then to try to understand it, too much information just makes it that much harder.

• What are the implications for your students, and for you as a contemporary educator?

The implication for my students is that they will learn and have exposure to the skills needed in the 21st century. The more that educators can do to prepare their students for the 21st century, the more likely they are to succeed. As for me as an educator, I find that I need more time in the schedule to teach the skills needed for them to succeed. Along with time, educators would also need the resources to teach it. The teaching environment that I teach in limits me to the resources to apply the skills with.

Overall, this site is a very informative and educational site. I agree with their mission statement about this site and its creators being the bridge to helping students form relationships between education, business, the community and government. If we are able to bridge the gap, we are only helping the students to be successful in life.

How I might use blogging in my classroom

I currently teach general math and pre-algebra in the 7th grade. My rationale on why a blog is a good tool for my classroom is because it would be an interactive way for the students to comment and help each other with their homework assignments.

*What purpose would the blog serve?

I would use blogging in my classroom to keep the students and their parents up to date on what they students are doing in the classroom along with what they will be doing in the classroom. It will also be a place where parents could post comments on anything that may be concerning them or comments that they want to make about the class in general.

*Is it a place for students to interact about content?

This would be a place where students could interact with each other to help one another out when they may get stuck on a problem. For instance, we are currently working on finding the surface area of of prisms and cylinders. Many of my students are struggling with this material. If I had a blog set up, they could be talking amongst themselves to help one another try to figure out the problems. Peer to peer teaching is sometimes better than teacher to student teaching.

*How does using a blog enhance the lesson?

Using a blog is a good way to involve the students in helping one another on their math homework. The blog will also invite other bloggers from around the globe to maybe help my students understand the material they are discussing and maybe give them another way of thinking about the subject matter and how to solve it.

Using Technology in the classroom

Hello everyone! I am a 7th grade math teacher who teaches one session of pre-algebra and three sessions of general math every day. The school I currently work in is in Wisconsin. It has been listed as a Title One school. My school is just starting to get better technology in the school. When I started there 3 years ago, I was using the blackboard and powerpoint presentations to present my lessons. As of last January, I have gotten a promethean board, white board and a document reader. Recently they were able to get a document reader in every classroom and a promethean board in half the classrooms. I am just afraid that once they get a promethean board in every classroom like they want to, the older boards will be out dated and they will have to update them all or start with more up to date technology. I want to be able to bring the best lessons to my students using the most up to date technology. If any of you readers are in a classroom teaching and have more up to date technology than this, I would love to hear about it and how you are using it.