21st Century Learning

When I was examining the web site for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they include arts in the list of core subjects to be mastered. If creative problem solving is a key 21st century skill, it makes sense that the arts is a core subject. Even students, and I was one of them, who do not consider themselves artistic, can benefit from developing their creativity. This theme has been emphasized lately in my school. During an in-service for differentiation, my school's gifted program coordinator pointed out that art has been very important in reflecting cultural values of our society. Just yesterday, my principal noted that my English department has diverse personality styles, which can help us be better problem solvers as we restructure our curriculum maps. So, I would say that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is dead on correct to identify creative problem solving as a key skill.

I also agree with the site's identification of understanding global issues. In today's world, we are working with colleagues from a variety of nations and backgrounds. Collaboration is a necessary skill to learn. This means that as a teacher, I have to guide my students' understanding and use of collaboration. I have a responsibility to learn how to help my students be effective contributors in groups, not only when they are in the same room, but also when the group members are across the world. This means I must learn how to use technology such as blogs and wikis myself and teach the responsible use of them to my students.

Welcome Message

Welcome to my blog. This is brand new to me. If anyone has pointers or ideas for a beginner, please respond and let me know.

I’m working on my master’s degree on instructional technology. I already use a SMART Board in my class, have students create Power Points, and use web sites as teaching tools. The current site I’m using with my freshmen English class is called Change My Mind. It is a well organized approach to teaching persuasion published by PBS. I highly recommend it.

Ideas for Blog Use in the Classroom

I like the idea for using a blog to foster student collaboration on novels. Will Richardson (2009) in his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms briefly explained that he used blogs to have students create chapter study guides. I plan to use blogs to have my English 10 students respond to the novel we will read, The Giver. I want them to have a place to ask each other as well as a larger web audience about topics in the book. I use journals to have the students write about assigned topics that are related to daily lessons. I can use this blog as their journals for the novel.

I just finished grading journals and I wrote notes to my students in them. Some notes are for improvement of writing, some are personal responses to their thoughts. I know that many of them will not look at the notes at all, and the response is not timely. I collect journals once a grading period, so a comment might be about an entry that is weeks old. Blogging seems to be a tool that I can use to create a more responsive, interactive journal between my students and me. It will allow me to give more timely feedback. The blogs will also allow the students to seek feedback on their thoughts from a larger audience. This can provide a forum for them to expand their views.

Logistics might prove difficult. I have a blog on a site built to add students, but how do I do that? I think I'll need to take them to the computer lab to set things up. Then I will have to sign passes to the library during study halls for them to access the blogs throughout the unit. Some students can access them at home, but certainly not all of my students can do that. Maybe I can set aside one day each week during the unit in the lab for work on the blogs. Please give me feedback on how this idea sounds and suggestions for logistics.

-Shannon