Partnership for 21st Learning

My initial reaction to the Partnership for 21st Learning was overwhelming.  The web site is full of so much information I did not know where to begin.  In the overview section I was able to gain a sense of what the partnership is about.  I started by reading about the Skills Framework.  I was pleased to see that in the core subjects section of the frame work that all the traditional subjects are included.  Just today at school the social studies department had an emergency meeting to discuss new legislation that is looking to remove social studies from the states high school graduation requirements.  In the state of Colorado all students take a standardized test that covers reading, writing, and math every year with science being tested every four years.  As a result there is a much higher emphasis placed on Math and Language Arts not mention pressure on those teachers.  I see value in all the Core subjects and am pleased that subjects like art, world languages, geography, and history listed.  I also find the 21st Century Themes to be refreshing.  Just today I was reading an article in 5280 about Colorado having the lowest obesity rate in America at around 19%.  That translates to one fifth of the state being obese "Not chubby. Not carrying around 10 extra pounds. Obese.  Which means that excess fat has built up in the body to the point it can negatively effect ones health,"  (Koehler, 2007).  This fact about the skinniest state in the union really emphasizes the importance of Health literacy as a 21st Century skill.  I also see great value in Global awareness and Environmental literacy as well.

After learning about the framework I started to look into the tools and resources section to try and find some tools that I can use to help teach some of these skills to my students. While searching through the tools I found Route 21 which delves deeper into the framework and provides resources for the core subjects and 21st Century themes.  While there I found some useful resources.  The first one is 21st Century Information Fluency.  This site provides tools for effectively researching information on the internet, evaluating the reliability of the material, and citing that material using a variety of formats.  There are also search challenges which are activities that students can do to learn about how to effectively use a keyword search.  Another link that I found useful was 21st Century Questions.  This site is a blog where teachers collaborate to, "set up a free open space online where teachers can pool quality 21st century questions, and give students the free online tools they need to explore them individually or collaboratively," (21st Century).  These questions do a great job of prompting students to think about relevant issues and prompt them to use 21st century skills to respond to them.

As an educator I can use the Partnership for 21st Century Skills to help inform decisions I make about what I teach and how I choose to teach it.  I will also use it as a resource to help me find information and tools to use in my instruction.  By using this sight and its vast resources I can begin to teach 21st Century skills to my students.

References:
Koehler, L.  (2010).  The last lean americans.  5280, 2010(18), 73-79
Partnership for 21st Learning
Route 21
 21st Century Information Fluency
21st Century Questions
Koehler, L.  (2010).  The last lean americans.  5280, 2010(18), 73-79.

My class blog

After spending the week thinking about starting a homework blog I decided to see if their was any interest from my students.  I had created my blog earlier this week but did not tell my students about it.  In my last two classes on Thursday I asked my students if they would like to have a place on the internet where they could go and ask questions about the homework, and classwork redos they are working on and have me answer them.  I was overwhelmed by the hands that went up.  Almost all my students were interested.  So I showed them the blog I set up and told them to use that evening because they had homework due the next day. That night I had two students post questions and I was able to help them.  I am very excited about my blog and I can not wait to get to school today and talk it up to all my classes.
Check out my homework blog and let me know what you think.

Blogs in my classroom

I am a 7th grade math teacher and while I find blogs fascinating and see their potential for getting students to collaborate I have had a hard time developing ways to to use them in my classroom.  As a math teacher I find that giving my students individual feed back on assignments is one of the best ways for me to correct them and help them to see what mistake they are making and how to correct them.  This however, can be extremely time consuming as one class's assignment can take me up to an hour and a half to grade.  I am beginning to think that blogging might be a way for me to help give student more constructive feed back on their homework and assignments they are correcting.  My initial thought is to set up a blog where students can go and post their questions about assignments.  I would try to check it in the evenings so students could get feed back rapidly but  I know that this might get to be a little over whelming on my part though and I might not always be able to answer questions each night.  To counter act this I would focus on the evenings before assignments were due when all my little procrastinators are stressing out.  My goal would be that students might even start to help each other out by responding to one another rather than waiting for me.  My major concerns are would my students use this if it was not required and how would I encourage them to help each other out with out blatantly giving each other answers.  What do you all think?

My Mimio

This year I was asked by my principal to pilot the use of a Mimio board in my classroom.  A Mimio board is a device that turns any surface into a smart board when combined with a projector.  In this blog I plan on discussing the various uses I find for my Mimio board and any other technology I use with it.