21st Century Learning Skills

This week we were to review the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills website. After reviewing the site, I learned that it is a national organization whose mission is to advocate for 21^st century skills for all students. The website provided tools and resources, state initiatives, as well as events and news for visitors to view. Sadly, this was the first time that I had heard of this website. It seems like it is a site that more people should know about though given the push for incorporating 21^st century skills into our schools.

In the mission section of the website, it discusses the profound gap between knowledge and skills children learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in a 21^st century community. It continued to explain how classroom environments must align with real world environments by fusing together the 3R’s and the 4C’s. The four C’s being critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation. The 4C’s mentioned were very similar to Dr. Thornbug’s 21 century skills and disposition that were mentions in his Skills for the 21^st century video segment. The 4C’s mentioned on the website will serve as a guide to help me to develop 21^st century within my own classroom. It made reference to aligning classroom experiences with real world experiences. As a classroom teacher, it is my job to be sure I am giving these opportunities to my children while learning. The tools and resource section of the website will serve as a reference for future planning to implement these skills in the classroom.

The one thing that surprised me about the website like I mentioned before was the fact that I had not heard of it before. I was especially surprised when I looked at the history section of the website and saw all of the major names that even made the Partnership for 21 century skills possible. Of the founding organizations were AOL, Apple Inc., Dell, Microsoft, and NEA to name a few. With such sponsors, I thought maybe I would have been a little more familiar with the site. I was also surprised to see that Ohio had a state initiative page because I have not heard of this either. The readiness initiatives were in place since 2009 and I am just learning about it. I must be really out of the loop these days!

Overall, I thought the website was a good resource to have as an educator. It had some helpful information and tools to use. I did not care for the organization of the site though. I thought that it was very wordy and information was jumbled here and there. If I did not have to look at it for class, I don’t know that I would spend much time on it for the mere fact it was too wordy. I like pictures, videos, lesson ideas, or other ideas on how I can implement this framework into my own classroom. Besides my personal aesthetic wants for the website, I thought it provided some meaningful information on how to incorporate 21^st century learning skills into learning.

Scholastic Tools

Starting today, I will be adding some new ideas into my blog that others can begin to use in your classroom.

The first one I thought I would share is all of the great resources one can find on www.scholastic.com. When you log onto the Scholastic website, you will want to click on the teacher tab located on the top left of the screen.

Here you will find many resources to suite all grade levels. Among the resources you will find include the following:

·         Lesson plan ideas

·         SMARTboard resources

·         Daily Starters for each day of the week

·         eBooks (which are iPad and iPod compatible in the app store now!)

·         Story starters

·         Printables

·         Freebies

….the lists goes on….

 A favorite for my second and third graders is Comuter Lab Favorites Under student activities is a link called Computer Lab Favorites. The grade levels can be changed to focus on grades K-2 and 3-5.  It is definitely worth checking out! Students spin the wheel and it chooses an activity for them or, they may choose to click on activity themselves. The subject areas are Spanish, math, language arts, science, and social studies. Here is the link: Computer Lab Favorites

Enjoy!!

The Grand Question: How will I use this blog?

Blogging has become a growing trend across the world. According to William Richardson in his book Blogs, Podcasts, and Wikis “blogs can enhance and deepen learning” (Richardson, 2010). With this being said, there are many possibilities as to how I can implement a blog into my own classroom. Being a second and third grade reading specialist, one way I can incorporate a blog into learning is by having the children use a blog as a means of reflection and comprehension. I think that it would be fun to have the children scribe what he or she learned in class each day. Children would be able to blog about a set of vocabulary words, a reading strategy, or be able to give a brief summary of the story that was read. This would also allow the children to review what was learne along with allowing parents to be informed on what hss or her children are learning in class.

Another way I would be able to incorporate a blog into the classroom would be to have the children complete a book review of a book that he or she has recently read. To ensure the children are compiling a good review, the children will have a template made in advance to allow him or her to keep the information organized. Depending on the number of children within the class would also depend on the number of posts being made throughout the week.

Lastly, I would be able to use this blog as a resource to parents. I could post ideas on how they can help their children become more fluent readers. Posting ideas on how to work on comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary would be a great benefit to parents striving to help his or her child at home. Blogging would serve as a great form of communication for parents.

Blogging has the possibility to enhance learning in any content area as it is applicable to any area of learning. As I continue to use this blog, I hope to receive encouragement and ideas from others in my learning community to make sure it is serving a meaningful purpose. Overall, the possibilities of using blogs within the classroom are endless. With a little creativity and dedication, blogging can serve as a terrific learning tool for our 21^st century learners.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.