The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

There are many 21st century skills that are important for students to have learned about in order to be prepared for their futures and careers. Some of those skills include collaboration, core subjects like math and reading, critical thinking, and technology literacy. I had a chance to take a look at the website, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/.

I thought this was a great website to go to in order to get more information about these important skills that need to be taught in the classroom. It was an easy site to get around and included some important sections like a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page and some diagrams that help readers to understand these 21st century skills. I also liked how the website had videos that show specific lessons that incorporate 21st century skills. I think that it is helpful to be able to see real life lessons and examples of how you can incorporate these skills into the classroom.

One thing that I was surprised about was the fact that Wisconsin, my home state, was one of the states that was a part of the 21st century skills initiative. I have only been teaching for 3 years, but during this time, I haven’t heard about this initiative in Wisconsin. I feel that this would be something that educators need to know about and should be shared with all teachers.

I didn’t see anything on the website that I disagree with. I feel that these 21st century skills are important to know about and to teach, and this website helped to show the value of learning the skills.

Students are learning from us and we are the ones that help get them ready for their future. In order to help them succeed, we need to understand what the job market will be like and what skills they will need for those jobs. By learning more about the current and future job market, we will be able to help prepare our students. This website is a great starting point for any educator who would like to know more about these important skills or about the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Take a look at this site yourself. What do you think about it?

Second Grade Blogging

Blogging has definately been a new experience for me, filled with a few challenges. Although I have had some bumps in the road with starting my own blog, I can really see the benefits of using one in my classroom. My head is already full of neat things that I could do.

Since I am new to this technology I feel as though I need some time to learn more about it before I can let my students start going on to a blog. To begin, I was thinking that I would make my blog become a place to share information with parents. Communication between parents and teachers is very important, and this would be one way to communicate with them. I would like to be able to share with parents the things that their second grader is doing in school. I could include pictures of the different things that we have been doing. I was thinking about how my students could become involved in the process, though. I thought that I could have my students help me create the journal entries for the blog. Each week, I would have a student write what we did that week. Then, I would type it into the blog for parents to see. This blog would then also become a showcase for student writing. I believe that students would get more excited to write and to see their work on the internet!

Does anyone have any feedback? I would love to hear your ideas!

Just the beginning...

Well, this is the start of my blog that I just created! I am very excited to begin adding blogs to my page and checking back for comments and suggestions! Please come back again for more blog posts in the future!