21st Century Skills

I am currently realizing the importance of teaching our students 21 Century Skills to better prepare them for the future. I began exploring the website Partnership for 21st Century Skills. This website has emerged as the leading advocacy organization for implementing 21st century skills into education. What they are trying to do at this website is bring together leaders in the business community, and educational leaders to come up with a vision for 21st century education to help our students become successful citizens and workers in the 21st century. Their goal is to get schools, districts, and states the tools and resources necessary to change the current ways of teaching, and help implement technology and 21st century skills into education. In short, they are trying to get the U.S. to align classroom environments with real world environments by implementing 21st century skills into the classroom.

This website talks about the gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need 21st century communities and workplaces. I feel that this is a very good website. It is easy to navigate from topic to topic, and there is very useful information on this website. From this article you have access to many articles and videos on the subject matter. Even better, you have access to the states that are already involved in the program, and you have access to their goals and standards. From reading these you get a better idea of how some of these programs are being assessed and you get an idea of how some states are redesigning their schools to infuse some of these new skills.

I feel this websites is not only a good website, but it also is pushing the schools in the right direction. It gets the creative juices flowing, and as it gains support will have a profound affect on education in the future.

How Should I Use a Blog in My Classroom

I have been thinking about how I could use a blog in one of my history classes. I figured that I would use the blog to go over a topic we just learned in class. I then would have to sign out the computer lab. I then would have to come up with questions that I could use to give some sort of structure to the blogging. I then began to wonder if there was a way that I could make the blog private to just the students in my class. I then began to wonder of how I was going to walk around and make sure my students were on task. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could have a successful blogging session in my classes?

Using technology to teach Social Studies

I am High School Social Studies teacher who is currently taking college courses to get my masters in Technology in the Classroom. We are currently doing an assignment where I have to create my own blog. This is pretty much my first experience with blogging. I didn't even know where to start. Being a person with very limited computer skills, this is all new and I'm sort of just feeling my way around. Since I have to make a blog page, I might as well make it worth while. What I am trying to find out is some ways that I could use technology in my classroom to teach my Social Studies classes. I am looking for any idea that you might have for me on any topic in Social Studies. Can you help me?