Evaluating 21st-Century Skills Website (Partnership for 21st Century Skills)

I really like the mission the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website has in place. I think it is important to bridge a connection and partnership with education, business, the community, and government leaders in order to implement 21st Century Skills effectively. I am curious how this partnership reaches out to these areas because to be honest, this is my first time ever hearing of this website so I am wondering if it is widely publicized or if you hear of it through word-of-mouth. I was surprised when I went to look at the History section to see it was formed in 2002 and many popular founding organizations are tied in with the Partnership such as Apple Computer, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Dell Computer Corporation. The History section was not very detailed so I am interested in hearing how this Partnership came about and how it has grown over the course of 10 years.

I found the Tools and Resources section for Educators to be helpful. There is a great visual representation of the framework for 21st century learning. Also available in this section are ICT Literacy maps for individual core subject areas. I explored the Math map and it gave some great samples of how to implement the 21st century tools: communication, information processing, and research. If you are interested in any of these resources, let me know and I would be happy to show you where you can find them.

I did not really find anything in particular on the site that I disagreed with. To be honest, I felt the website is filled with a lot of information and it was a lot of wording. There are continuous links throughout the site that take you to a new piece of information on the 21st century skills content. I cannot say that I particularly liked the layout of their website. I feel that there is so much information readily available on this site, however, I feel if I were looking for something in specific to 21st century skills, I would have to search very thoroughly and hope the search bar option located on the homepage could help narrow my search. I am not quite sure how I could utilize this site. Colleagues, how have you utilized this site before or how do you think you could utilize the information given?

There are several key components I took from the website that I feel I can utilize in my classroom. I strongly agree with the mission of the Partnership. Taken from the Mission page, it states, “Every child in the U.S. needs 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders. This can be accomplished by fusing the 3Rs and 4Cs.” It is my duty to make sure in my teaching practices I am including opportunities for students to think critically and to problem solve, to collaborate, to communicate, and to be creative. This is a challenge that must be brought to the forefront of our classrooms. It seems as if in all of our readings this week, they specifically all reference a “gap” the students have once they hit the workplace and experience “the real world.” It is also important to remember to draw in connections with real world and academic content.

Blog Usage in the Classroom

As I think about ways I would utilize a blog site for usage in my 8th grade Pre-Algebra classroom, I think of having a blog in terms of having it as a “Class Portal” as referred to in the book “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.” I kind of have something pretty similar to this already for my class. However, I do not have it open for discussion or for anyone to comment on. To be quite honest, I have always been a little apprehensive of this because I work with 8th grade students and I fear someone might post something inappropriate (or use profanity). Has this ever been a concern for others?

I would like to use the blog as way to communicate with not only students, but my student’s parents. I often feel my student’s parents are sometimes out of the loop with what their children are doing in school and I think this is a great way for parents to be involved in their child’s education. I would post my student expectations, online textbook information, class announcements, homework assignments, All Stars of the month, information for students/parents to check their grades, a class calendar of upcoming events, extra credit opportunities, useful links, and ways students or parents can contact me.

I also feel it would be benefit to have a section where I can upload in-class notes for my students to utilize via recorded SMARTboard lessons. Often students get home and might forget how to do certain problems so if I can provide examples that they can go back and revisit (and they will actually use!), I think it would be worth my time to have a section like this. I think it would be useful to have this open for students to discuss and to ask each other for help if needed. A blog can enhance learning because it is another resource they can utilize to support their learning. They can engage in conversation with other students who utilize the blog and it is a way I might be able to help out a student later in the evening when they are working on their homework at home if they have a question. Students can also no longer give the excuse of “I didn’t know we had homework!” because it is all updated on the blog site. They can also download the class homework/worksheets at their own free will if they need an extra copy.

I think I am on the right track to getting a blog started for my classroom, but suggestions are always welcome. Here is my class website that I am utilizing now: http://www.msdaughtersmathclass.com/

New Blog!

Hi Classmates!

I am really excited to try out this new blog site. I created a blog through this same site in 2008 when I did my student teaching overseas in South Africa! I'm really excited to be using the blog site now for teaching and for the usage of technology! :-)

Thanks for reading!

-Emily