Podcast Assignment: Profiling the Students of Today

Click the link below to hear my latest podcast!

http://linzobrien9.podomatic.com/entry/2011-07-31T09_38_21-07_00

1st Attempt @ Podcasting

http://linzobrien9.podomatic.com/entry/2011-07-24T09_00_42-07_00

21st-Century Skills

Partnership for 21^st-Century Skills Website

www.p21.org

P21 is a national organization that advocates for 21st century readiness for every student.  This organization believes that critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation are key skills for the 21^st-century.  I agree with the beliefs and ideas of this website and feel that they are similar to what Dr. Thornburg and Dr. Dede believe.  I especially liked the layout of the framework for 21^st-century skills.  The framework consists of core subjects, 21^st-century content, learning and thinking skills, information and communications technology, life skills, and 21^st-century assessments.   There are various online tools, resources, and links for 21^st-century skills.  I was disappointed to see that Georgia was not listed under their state initiatives.  Overall, it’s a great informative website for 21^st-century skills.

Blogs in the Classroom

After creating a blog, I needed to figure out how I would utilize a blog in my classroom.  My blog will focus on 1st grade and will incorporate all subject areas.  I plan to use my blog as my classroom website.  The blog will serve the purpose of communication between myself and my students' families.  On this blog I will include a calendar of events, homework calendar, various links to other educational websites/games, classwork from our class, pictures from fun activities that we've done, and other helpful tips/information needed for parents and familes.  I would teach my students how to access our class blog, so that they would be able to interact with it from home with the help from their parents.  This would make it fun for the kids.  They could go on our blog and write comments about lessons/activities they liked or comment on class photos.  I also feel that by utilizing a class blog, the parent support/interaction would increase.  Parents would have the opportunity to look at what we're doing at school.  Parents would be able to see hall displays and class bulletin boards with just a click of the mouse.  Also, by having a class blog, students are more likely to be more motivated to want to increase their technology skills.  I could easily incorporate our class blog into technology lessons to spark their interest.  Making learning more realistic with our class blog will increase engagement and learning.  I believe that a blog is a good tool for instructional context because it will increase engagement while teaching students various technology skills needed for learning and real-world situations.