Reactions to www.p21.org

Reactions to www.p21.org

I recently visited the provided website. I found this website very interesting. The entirety of the website is based on 21^st century skills and assistance in ensuring that these skills are used and taught in classrooms around America.  It focuses on combing the 3Rs and 4Cs: Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity and innovation in education.

I found this website helpful and enjoyed the different resources, blogs and suggestions that it made for incorporating 21^st century skills into the classroom.  Since it was a national website with so many supporters it helped me to realize the how big of a debate and issue ensuring that 21^st century skills are taught and applied in the classroom. It is obvious that educators around America are struggling in how to incorporate these skills into their classroom.

Like all information we read on the internet it must be taken with a grain of salt along with a fair dose of critical thinking. I agree with some of the information displayed on this website but think it is important to modify it in order to meet the needs of your own classroom, community and district initiatives.  Although the 3Rs and 4Cs are important skills and definitely desirable for being successful in the 21^st century I don’t believe that it needs to be local, state and federal policies are necessary. As stated before it is important to adapt and use these skills as appropriate to each class, community and district.  Several of these 21^st century skills also include the use of technology and therefore, unless the federal, state and provincial government is prepared to provide funding for resources, technology and training in order to insist that we use these skills as a main focus every day then it should not yet be a “policy.”

If 21^st century skills become central to teaching subject matter this will definitely help the children to become more ctirical and independent thinkers as well as help them to be efficient at skills necessary to the workplace. As a teacher, if these skills become a policy then we will be expected to change our teaching practice and hopefully will be supported in doing so with extra training, funds and support in making sure that these skills are properly infused with other curricular necessities.

A Blog in Lower Elementary

I am a grade two, elementary teacher.  A blog can be a very useful tool for a classroom. A way that I would like to use a blog in my classroom is mainly as a showcase for their work. Elementary students are very proud of everything that they accomplish in a day and even more proud and excited to show it off. I would like to use my blog as a communication tool between the students, the parents and myself. I would like to share the students' achievements and creations. This would be our opportunity to share our hard work not only with our parents but also our relatives, other citizens of our community and with the world. It would be especially neat for comments and student interaction from other students around the world. This blog would enhance our lessons because the students would have a focus group and someone to impress other than just me. They would know that the work they complete is shown to the world and therefore, they should do there best. I think this would really be a great way to use a blog in a lower elementary classroom.