21st Century Skills

After navigating through the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website, I was very impressed and motivated by the information and resources included on this site. The 21st Century Learning Framework provides an excellent visual representation of what essential skills students will need to acquire to be successful. Another aspect of the site that I found helpful was the “Route 21” link. After reading about some of the skills teachers need to be teaching, the “Route 21” link provides lots of great resources and tools that educators can begin using and implementing within their classrooms.

I was a little surprised by the short list of states included under the “State Initiatives” link. It is apparent how important each of the skills included in the Partnership for 21st Century Learning Framework are. It is critical for our students gain these skills in order to be successful in today’s competitive workforce. With society and technology advancing at such a fast pace, it will be necessary for every state to begin working towards preparing our students with many of these 21st century skills.

The 21st Century Skills website is an excellent resource that educators can reference for ideas on how to support the needs of our students. I am a strong advocate for the vision the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website has. I did not see anything that I would disagree with. As an educator in today’s classrooms, I would definitely recommend this site. The assessments and resources found on this site help to guide the instruction needed for preparing our students with the essential skills they will need.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Incorporating a Blog Into the Classroom - Writing Journals

There are endless possibilities as to how a blog can add to the educational atmosphere in one’s classroom. As I am just beginning to learn about the potentials a blog offers, I have already begun thinking of ways that I could implement a blog into my classroom. I currently use a daily journal that students use to practice their writing skills. The students each have a journal in their desks. While some students enjoy sharing their entries with the class, this traditional method does not allow for my less outgoing students to share their work. Through the use of a blog, my students could all add a journal entry and have access to their peers’ journal entries. My students could share comments about each others’ work and provide feedback. As the readings on blogs have recommended, I would have to first teach my students how to write a blog that will be open to the public. Students would have to be very careful to edit/proofread their postings prior to making it public. Our class could work together to create rules and procedures to follow when posting on a class blog. Once the students understand both the safety precautions and public access associated with blogs, my students would have numerous opportunities to share their work. Once I become comfortable with the blogging experience, I definitely plan to utilize this resource in my classroom.
Grade Level: 4
Content Area: General Ed.

First-Time Blogger

I am usually pretty up-to-date with the latest innovations with technology. Blogging however is very new to me. While I have read several blogs on sites such as MySpace and Facebook, I have never actually created my own blog. Since this a new experience for me, I am open to any feedback or ideas as to what types of things make for interesting posts to add to a personal blog. I was planning on using my blog as a place to post teaching ideas and resources that I use and would recommend to fellow teachers.