Reflection

When we first began this course, I was not sure how I could effective use blogs, wikis and podcast in my everyday lessons- boy was I wrong! 

Throughout this course, I have to say that I have found new and exciting tools and skills to use with my students in my classroom. I have realized that with each lesson that I build, I am integrating more and more technology tools because of the resources and commentaries from my colleagues which have guided me. My students are constantly excited to determine what type of technology we will be using that day. In order to continue to guide my students in creating their own learning path, I often give them choices in the creation of their final product as well as how they achieve that. For example, my students often have the option of either writing in their reflective journal, posting in their blog, or discussing on the class wiki.

Through these new adaptations, I have deepened my skills and abilities as a teacher thus enhancing my knowledge of the learning process. I look forward to continuing to find new and more exciting ways to include these new skills in my lessons and activities.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a website developed to help teachers, parents and students understand and develop the skills necessary to not only manage in the classroom, but outside of the classroom as well. This partnership is working towards collaboration between businesses, education and the government to help students become more prepared for their life in the 21st century workforce, which is much of what my currrent course covers.

There were many things that surprised me when it came to the information I found, altough the most surprising were the statistics that regarded the success of programs around the country.
“Eighty-four percent of employers say K-12 schools are not doing a good job of preparing students for the workplace; 55 percent say schools are deficient in preparing students with basic employability skills (such as attendance, timeliness and work ethic); 51 percent cite math and science deficiencies; and 38 percent cite reading and comprehension deficiencies. A very small percentage of 4th and 8th grade students US students (less than 30%) perform at a proficient level in math, while up to 20% lack the competence to perform even basic mathematical computations” (Partnership for 21st Century Skills). These statistics were surprising because I expected more due to the vast amount of programs and resources available.

As a contemporary educator, I hope to use the skills and resources that they have provided to help ensure that my students are ready for the workforce with the 21st century skills they will require. I plan on using the resources to bring this information to my district to help ensure that they are putting in place the necessary skills for all of our students. Because of this, my students and my district in general, will become more successful in preparing our students.

Reference:
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011). Partnership for 21st Century Skills. In A Framework for 21st Century Learning. Retrieved November 22, 2011, from http://www.p21.org/index.php.

Blogging in my classroom

The more I read about blogging, the more interested I am in finding as many ways to use them in my classroom. I think the first thing I would use it for was as a place for students and parents to interact about the content of the lessons. In this case, I would post lessons content for the week and allow students and parents to discuss what we are working on. This would also help with parental interaction within the content and the lesson. Throughout the posts I would also share insight following the lesson for ways to enhance learning and share student work as well as student thinking.

I believe that by using a blog, I could enhance student engagement within the lesson by increasing their interaction. I hope to be able to find more ways to use the blog to ensure my students (and parents) are up to date with what we are working on in the classroom. I teach 3rd grade, general education, in which I hope to create a blogging area for each content area that I teach. I believe that using a blog is a great way to increase interaction within the lesson content and share ideas and thoughts with parents.

New adventure

I am excited to begin this new adventure of creating a blog! I have been wanting to get started on one of these for my class but wasn't really sure how to start. So far, it looks like it has many great uses. I am excited to see what I can learn.