21st Century Skills Review

    This week during my course work for Walden University I was asked to critique the following website, Partnership for 21^st Century Skills. My initial reactions were positive and I am optimistic that I can integrate this website into my own classroom.  I was first drawn to the websites goal statement.  Partnership for 21^st Century Skills or P21 is dedicated to prepare students for a more global America. P21 and its partners hope to stimulate innovation and learning in American classroom through collaboration with business, community and government leaders.  I wholeheartedly support this type educational innovation.

     After playing with the website for some time I was pleasantly surprised to find that it contained a plethora of viable information for not only teachers but students, administrators as well.  I especially like the MILE GUIDE for 21^st Century skills.  This toolkit offers an amazing amount of information to help improve learning and instruction on the district level.  The MILE GUIDE offers teachers a comprehensive checklist to assess their own classroom as it applies to 21^st century skill sets and then offers instructions on how to improve one’s instruction.  I found this to be a truly helpful tool for improving one’s classroom.  This is merely one of hundreds of applications form this website designed to improve the viability of your classroom.

   I found very little that I disagreed with while reviewing this website.  A small gripe that I do have is the affiliation with Twitter. Students in my district are strictly disciplined when it comes to cell phone usage in school.  I would not use this application in my classroom as it violates school rules.  Again, this is a very small quibble and I know that the application is designed with teachers and administrators in mind, but it is not something that I would use in my classroom.

     Taken as a whole, the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills website is a great tool for classroom use.  I think that this site offers me many resources like online collaboration with other professionals, 21^st century skill guides and teaching strategies that would have a powerful impact on my students and my classroom as a whole. It is not a site that I would direct my students to participate in as much as it is a site to help me develop as a professional.

Why Use Blogs in the Classroom?

What is the use of blogs in the modern classroom?  This is a question that I have often asked myself over the past few years.  Studying educational technology at Walden University has truely opened my eyes to the usefulness of this technology in the classroom.  I teach Literature to 11th and 12th graders who are extremly interested in new forms of technology.  With this in mind I would start integrating my blog for my Advanced Placement classes first.
In contemplating how to incorporate blogs into my classroom I was struck this week with an inspired idea.  My Advanced Placement kids are in the middle of a literature project that incorporates daily reading responses.  I could have each student create their own blog site through Google, and then the student would be required to post their daily reading responses electronically.  The students could share their sites with each other and post comments and questions to their peers' responses.  This would also help me with grading the reading responses because I could simply log on to each students' site and quickly view their work. 
Using blogs in this way takes a very traditional literary assignment and makes it something new and interesting that the students could really get into. I hope to incorporate this new technology as soon as possible in my classes. Tell me what you think or are any of you doing something similar and does it work? 

My First Post

Hi,
My Name is Michael Ruark, and I am a teacher here at Big Walnut High School.  I have worked here for five years teaching Advanced Placement Literature and College Prep American Literature.  I am very interested in new and upcoming educational technologies.  The main goal of my blog is to comment on new technology and connect with other professionals for advice and tips.
Thanks for visiting,
Mike