The Resource of the Century!

I’m just returning from a visit to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills and I feel a bit like Alice coming back from a trip down the rabbit-hole. This is a truly amazing and comprehensive website for teachers and administrators who are interested in preparing their students for success in a new and demanding world. We all know that technology and society have changed dramatically in the last several years, yet most of us teach in industrial age schools which focus on individual knowledge, thought, and achievement. Today’s society has made the shift to a teamwork and collaboration oriented, constructionist view of knowledge, where people from different locations and backgrounds come together to engage in complex problem-solving and communication (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). We see this happening, we know the world is changing, yet our schools are lagging behind – and we often feel powerless to do anything about it.

The Partnership for 21st century skills seems intent on changing that, however! This forward-thinking partnership of businesses, educational leaders, and policy makers has clearly been hard at work developing a concept, backed up with resources and support, to help today’s educators take the steps needed to integrate 21st century skills into today’s schools. What most surprised me about the Partnership’s framework for 21st century learning (known as P21), was the minimal focus on the technological tools themselves; this site is not a tutorial on how to use one technology or another in the classroom. Rather, it is a comprehensive look at kind of skills and knowledge that our student’s will increasingly need, and ways to integrate these into our teaching practice.

My first thought once I got oriented in this site was, “Wow, somebody’s doing it! We’re not on our own!” We don’t need to reinvent the wheel – it’s been done, and the blueprints are here for the viewing. After navigating around this website, I began to realize that there are no excuses (even without school-wide internet access we can begin the transition to 21st century skills), all of the resources you need to begin adapting your instructional practices are available (I wouldn’t even dare to guess at the incredible number of quality links), and the support systems are in place.

One of the things I found most inspiring in the P21 Framework was the interdisciplinary 21st century themes, such as global awareness or civic literacy, which are meant to run through the traditional content areas and across skill groups. I find this approach holistic, in contrast to the fragmented, compartmentalized approach of the industrial past. Reaching across subject boundaries will certainly serve to inspire more flexible and complex thought and give rise to opportunities for quality communication and collaboration; it is reflective of the “elemental changes in the way that organizations organize and approach work” (Bates & Phelan, 2002, p.121) that have taken place in today’s economy.

Truly inspiring!


Resources:

Bates, R., & Phelan, K. (2002). Characteristics of a globally competitive workforce. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 4(2), 121.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Program Eleven. Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work and Society. [Motion picture]. Technology Interfaces. Baltimore: Author.

Blogging with 8th grade English Language Learners

As an English language teacher, I’ve been pondering ways to use a blog in the classroom since the idea was first introduced to me this summer. Though I’ve got some interesting thoughts for how to use the blog with my 12th grade students, what I’m less sure about, and what I want to put out there today, is how best to blog with my 8th grade English Language Learners. Blogging in a classroom setting will be a new experience for my students, who are not used to technology being part of their school lives at all. For this reason, as well as language considerations and my own inexperience, I plan to start small. I would like to post a prompt every week in connection with the literature or topics we are working on in class, to which each student is required to post a response and comment on two or three of their peer’s postings. I would also get involved by contributing to the conversation. Additionally, to make the blog an interesting “destination”, I would like to post assignments, rubrics, and a class calendar to aid in student organization, as well as some fun pictures, captions, and quotes for them to enjoy.

This simple blog would serve the purpose of introducing my students (and their parents) to school-related blogging, as well as allowing them to share their thoughts with a larger audience, and engage in (hopefully) meaningful communication with their peers. The topics discussed in the blog would connect directly to content we are covering in class, and I believe that referring to comments which were posted in the class blog during classroom discussions would enhance lessons by engaging student interest, recognizing student-generated ideas or insights, and providing the opportunity to build on what was said in the blog in subsequent lessons.

Blogging is more that journaling in a different form. According to Bill Richardson, it sharpens critical reading and writing skills, develops media literacy and information management skills, promotes and supports student collaboration, and teaches about social (and technological) networks. For this reason, it is more than worth diving into. Nevertheless, I have some concerns about using blogs with my students. These are: lack of access to internet, parental displeasure (I’m in a very alternative school environment), and posting student work which contains grammatical errors (unavoidable if their contributions are to be authentic).


I look forward to reading your comments!