Partnership for 21st Century Skills

As part of my Master's degree course work, I browsed through the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website. P21 is an advocacy group comprised of educators, businesses and policy makers whose goal is to ensure 21st century skills are being utilized in classrooms across the United States to prepare students for positions in the global workforce.

The website is very easy to navigate with five drop-down menus from which to select narrower topics. The drop-down tabs include overview, tools and resources, state initiatives, events and news, and contact us. I especially liked that the site included the latest news in 21st century learning. It's a great way to keep educators and others up-to-date without having to subscribe or search data bases for new information.

What surprised me most on the website was under the "state initiatives" tab. I expected to find every state listed, but only found fourteen. I would think if P21 is a leading advocacy group, they would acquire and post all state initiatives throughout the country. Does that mean that not all states have initiatives? Do you need to pay/donate money to the group to have your state listed? Why is each state different if the goal is to "infuse 21st century learning into all schools"? Wouldn't it be more productive to have an initiative that is applicable to all state education systems? If this was the case, all students, regardless of the district they attend in the United States, would be challenged to meet the same standards. So, if my state isn't listed, does that mean that the students in Pennsylvania will have more of a challenge ahead of them when looking for a job because they might not have the same technological skills?

The implication I see for my students and myself are an increased awareness placed on states to improve how we are currently teaching our students. More and more pressure will continue to be placed on school districts to accept the fact that students today don't learn like children did even ten years ago. Without meeting these newest and ever-changing demands, we continue to widen the gap between our country's workforce and the rest of the global community.

www.21stcenturyskills.org

Classroom Blogs

I've been trying all year to get my administration to allow me to open a blog for classroom use, but have been unsuccessful (unless I want to use Moodle). However, if I were to have a blog for my fourth grade students, I would begin by having it as a place where students could post responses to writing prompts (Richardson, 2009). This would be a place where my students could post their prompts and receive feedback from their peers and parents. A writing blog would allow interaction between parents and children as well as provide the students with an authentic purpose and audience for writing, which in turn enhances and encourages more writing. Students would be expected to post to a weekly prompt and respond to someone else's prompt during the week by providing a "glow and grow." The "glow" would be pointing out something their classmate did well, and the "grow" would be a recommendation for a change to make the piece better.

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

My First Post

Wow! The 21st century is really here and I'm getting my feet wet with Web 2.0 technologies by creating my own blog. I can remember back in 1995 feeling excited and nervous to be using the internet for the first time. Now I'm anxious to use it to enhance my teaching and help my students learn a new way of learning. Looking forward to many thoughtful discussions!