Partnership for 21st Century Skills

There is a lot of information on this website.  One of the things that I do think is interesting about this website is the lack of PE/Health documentation.  We are one of the most obese countries in the world and have a horrible diet as a country.  Now learning how to avoid major health issues as adults apparently isn’t important, so we will be smart obese people who die prematurely because we don’t know how to take care of our bodies.  

One of the things that I did find interesting is the emphasis on things that are not technology related.  I have been trying to make my kids problem solve more and more.  We also work in groups when we do labs and I am trying to make the learning process more collaborative in nature as well.  Motivation is a key issue that is also addressed in this website that our school has been trying to address for the last couple of years.  

One frustration that I have that the politicians, administrators and frankly parents underemphasize is the opinion and support of parents.  Our school district has many things that other schools don’t.  We have 3 computer labs that are designed for classes to visit.  There are about 5 teachers that have at least 10 computers in our rooms.  We are in the process of purchasing one 16 station and one 8 station COW (computers on wheels).  Our entire school has wireless for kids to use on their laptops or phones.  We have spent a bunch of time reviewing and aligning our curriculum, and yet we haven’t addressed the parent support of our school.  I really feel like until our parents tell their kids that school is important and have actions that match their words, our school is not going to significantly change.  This document talks briefly about the support of parents but I think that this area is massively underemphasized.  

I feel like I am already being reflective in nature of trying to find ways to help prepare my kids for the 21^st century, I just need to continue to adapt and improve my technological practices in my class so that the kids can continue to be better prepared for their future.

Here is the link to the website I am talking about:  http://www.p21.org/

Use for my Blog

I teach High School Science, Math and Physical Education.  Right now I actually have an immediate use for a blog that I am going to try as this class progresses.  My students seem to be having a hard time understanding the content in my Physics class, so I have created a blog for them to chat with me and each other to promote discussion about Physics.  The plan would be that they visit this blog when they are frustrated or confused about a topic from class and hope that the discussion that can occur from this will help them to understand the content necessary for them to be successful in my class.  This would be a public forum in hopes that occasionally other people from the world my chime in to help them better understand what they are supposed to know. My hope would be that by discussing the topics with each other as well as anyone else who looks at this blog they will increase their physics comprehension.

My First Post

As a part of my masters degree, I am using this to as a part of the program.  Not sure what content will end up on this blog, but hopefully I will find many uses for it in the future.