Partnership for the 21st Century

The Partnership for the 21st Century Skills, promotes ensuring that all students are ready to be successful in the 21st Century. The Partnership has developed elements that are “critical systems necessary to ensure 21st century readiness for every student”. The framework supports 4 student outcomes (Life and Career Skills; Learning and Innovation Skills; Information, Media, and Technology Skills; and Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes) and 4 support systems (Standards and Assessments; Curriculum and Instruction; Professional Development; and Learning Environments). The Partnership states that “core content is not enough” and that educators need to “fuse the 3 R’s and the 4 C’s” together to successfully prepare students. The 3 R’s referred to Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, history and others. It seems the 3 R’s really refers to core subjects. The 4 C’s referred to Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity.

In searching the website, I found that it offered resources to districts, schools and educators. One resource I feel that would be valuable to my district is the free online MILE (Milestones for Implementing Learning & Education) Guide Assessment. This free online assessment contains 14 questions. After all questions are answered, the assessment rates the districts stage of teaching 21st century skills as Early, Transitional, or 21st Century. Recommendations are then also offered. I was disappointed the recommendations for the most part were to purchase a product the Partnership sales. Another resource I found interesting was the Professional Development Affiliate Program. I was excited about the possibility of attending a program that could help my and my school begin to develop programs, curriculums and assessments around the 21st Century Skills our students need. However, I was surprised about the cost and felt that would prohibit my or my schools involvement.

In general, I found the Partnership was another positive group that supported preparing students for the 21st Century. I agreed with their student outcomes and support systems. The Partnerships mission and framework are aligned with other resources I have reviewed. We as educators need to teach our students not only subject matter but also how to be self-learners that can think critically and work as a team member.

Blog in the classroom?

Through discussions and readings, I have learned that blogs can play an important role in a classroom. There are many different uses for blogs. Blogs can be used to help with class organization and management, to help facilitate interaction among students, to increase parent awareness and involvement, and to provide links to internet resources that are available.

Being new to blogs, I feel I need to take baby steps to incorporate blogs into my classroom. One way I can see using a classroom blog is to provide a place to post announcements, important dates (end of grading periods, state testing dates), expectations, and homework assignments. This would allow for on-going conversations between students, parents and teacher. It seems that it would also be valuable to post links to resources that are available on-line that the students could access for help.

Even though blogs are new to me, I am sure that they are not new to my high school students. What will be new is that students will need to learn and understand the difference between social interaction with their peers and academic interaction. Blogs are becoming an important part of communication for education, companies.....for society.

Informational Age in Technology

What would/could the informational age look like in education?

Education in the informational age would look very different than the current system. The agricultural age led to the current calendar based on when crops needed to be harvested....in the informational age, students would be able to achieve what Dr. David Thornburg calls "learning anytime, anywhere". The industrial age led to students needing to be sitting in the same classroom and separated into age/grade levels.....in the informational age, students could connect and collaborate via the internet. Students can be in different cities, states, and countries and be working together to learn. The informational age would allow teachers to go paperless......notes, worksheets, assignments, etc. could be available on the internet.

The informational age has and will provide so many opportunities to education. The educational community needs to choose to progress into the informational age.

[The ideas of the three ages (agricultural, industrial, and informational) are from Alvin Toffler's, The Third Wave.]