Final Thoughts

This course has helped me to become more thoughtful in planning lessons for my students that will help develop their 21st Century skills. Through this course I was able to discuss with other educators, how they would like to incorporate technology into their classroom and have share ideas of my own. I have been able to experiment with blogs, wikis, and podcasts and read several publications that describe "best [tech] practices" and applications of technology in the classroom. Though I have used many of these applications in my classroom before, this was not entirely new for me, however the wealth of this course has been through the discussions with fellow teachers and the course materials presented by educators that have a 21st-century vision.

I plan to continue to expand my knowledge through reading the latest articles and blogs about classroom technology integration and trying to accumulate the best ideas out there to try with my own students. I have already found that my students are more motivated when they have access to a computer but what I would like to do is have the students really take charge of their learning. I want my classroom to be less teacher-directed and more teacher-facilitated.

To accomplish this I would like to begin using a class wiki. I already maintain a simple "announcement" style website for my students to use a guide or reference but the material there is collected by me and disseminated to my student audience. I would like this website to become more of a collection of what my students are learning and what they are able to do with that knowledge. I plan to begin small-scale with my classes upon the start of our next unit. Hopefully by next year I will learn how to best facilitate a wiki on a large scale and will use it at the beginning of the year completely integrated into my curriculum.

Another goal I have is to create a regular podcast channel that is student created. I would like my students to create episodes that enhance our curriculum and support other students with learning some of the more difficult science concepts. To begin this, I want to assign small groups of students with that charge of evaluating a given current-events article that is relating to our unit of study and have them analyze this within a short podcast. By archiving these podcasts I will begin a listening library that other (and future) students will be able to access for remediation, extension, or even just for fun!

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

After looking at the website for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, I was surprised that so few states are partnered with this organization. Upon further exploration I found that the standards for becoming a recognized partner are quite stringent including having high-profile leadership, aligned standards with 21st Century Skills, an overhaul of assessments, and an "aggressive" implementation strategies. It seems that those states that have become partners, though few in numbers, are quite motivated to elevate the level of education in anticipation of  the skills and habits of mind that students will need to be competitive in this century's workforce. I applaud them.

My home state of Ohio has recently joined the list but my current state of New York is not among the few. This is not a surprise to me. Working in Ohio I found language related to 21st Century Skill already imbedded in curriculum and starting to creep in to influence school funding decision at the local level. New York's state standards have little reference to technology at all. We are so far behind.

I recently found this blog by the Electric Educator. There's a pretty good discussion happening around how to "Google Proof" the questions you are asking your students. I think that the blog provides an interesting reminder that as technology advances, so too must our instruction.

Blogs in the classroom

Among all of the ideas that have been presented for blog use in the classroom, I am most attracted to the idea of using blogs as the extension of my classroom curriculum. I am constantly trying to encourage my 8th grade science students to connect our content to their prior knowledge and personal lives. I would use blogs as a way for students to add personal connections to the content presented in class by having students post blog entries (and comments) related to the big topics or main ideas that we are covering. For example, on main idea of our genetics unit is the idea of using our knowledge of genetics to improve human lives. During this time, students can create entries that highlight recent developments in the science of genetics.

Introduction

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