Review of P-21

I recently reviewed the website for the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills and was very impressed with it.  Mostly, I was interested in the resources available for teachers as well as parents and community members.  The site provides current information about the importance of students learning 21^st century skills.  I was surprised by the website providing a “toolkit” that explains how connections can be made between Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and 21^st century skills. The teaching ideas presented in this “toolkit” were few, but they were of great quality.  The activities were meaningful and covered multiple CCSS and 21^st century skills.  This resource was surprisingly interesting as it provided examples of student work.  I have developed a greater understanding through reviewing how to make 21^st century connections. 

While I agree with most ideas presented on this site, I do not wholeheartedly agree with the notion of online learning environments.  I feel that some students going into an online learning environment may not be prepared for a full online classroom.  However, a simulated online classroom would be extremely beneficial to prepare the students for online college classes or online trainings requested from employers.  These simulated classrooms could include online classrooms, blogs, wikis, and other online communication tools. 

The implication that the information on this site has for students is there are skills which they will need to possess in order to be successful in their future jobs.   I find it interesting that this site has a parent page.  The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills (n.d., p. 4) explains that “[s]chools, like businesses, communities and families, must adapt to changing conditions to thrive.”  Thus, I plan to share this site with the families of my students during our upcoming orientation to stress the importance of 21^st century skills.  The implication this site holds for teachers is that teachers do not need to come up with their own resources.  On this site, there are plenty of resources available to assist teachers with ideas to integrate 21^st century skills into the learning experiences in the classroom.

Resources

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills.

Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/

A Blogging Classroom

The utilization of a blog in my prekindergarten classroom would serve a purpose of showcasing work to families and members of the community.  Prekindergarten is a school year that consists of much growing and changing.  Since many families enjoy learning about what their children are doing in the classroom, I have chosen to use our class blog as a publishing tool.  Richardson (2010) mentions that “The true potential of blogs in schools comes when students and teachers use them as publishing tools” (p. 43)  As the students demonstrate skills in the content areas as well as technology, social, and life skills, I would upload descriptions, pictures, and videos of these events. 

Another use of the blog would be for families and members of the community to comment on the blog posts, which would provide real world communication for my students.  One example of a meaningful blog post would be for my students to perform a reader’s theater skit on video.  The video would be posted to the blog.  We would write a letter as a class asking our third grade reading buddies to watch the video.  I would ask the teacher of that class to have her students, either as individuals or as a class, respond to our skit.  Our class already communicates frequently thorough a paper mailing system through the school.  Communicating through a blog would be helpful for both classes to gain a better understanding of the purpose of a blog.  Each time a blog is posted, I would send a note home to the parents and encourage the students to go to the blog at home after asking their parents.  Fisch (2007) produced a video with the following quote:

According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley…the top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.  We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist…using technologies that haven’t yet been invented…in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.

Since future jobs and job skills are unknown, teachers need to ensure that students have the understanding of how current technologies operate.  Also, teachers should foster an interest in using multiple technologies in order to guide the students to grow with technology.  Given the opportunity to use the technology will allow students to become more comfortable with and excited to use available technologies.

References

Fisch, K. (Producer). (2007, February 8). Did you know? Shift happens [Web Video]. Retrieved

from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q&eurl

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd

ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.