21st Century Schools

The organization Partnership for 21st Century Skills has developed a framework for integrating “21st century skills” into our school’s curriculums. This in depth plan outlines the key elements of a 21st century education, including the skills students will need for the future, as well as new content that students will need to learn.

Our schools are struggling to keep up with the fast-paced changes in our society, including the introduction of new technologies. The push towards 21st century learning that the Partnership is spearheading is essential if we wish to prepare our students for their futures. I was surprised to learn that the framework proposed the Partnership aligns with No Child Left Behind. Their recommendations “complement” NCLB, in fact, and would help schools meet the legislation’s goal of students achieving technology literacy.

I have one issue with the organization’s proposal, however. They encourage the use of “21st century tools” to develop the skills our students will need in the future. These include computers, video and audio recorders, as well as other various tools which students must have access to in order to become technology literate. The plan lacks an explanation as to how our school systems will be able to provide these tools for all students. They make no suggestions as to how this technology can become affordable and available to ensure all of our nation’s students have equal access to the technology that will prepare them for their futures. With such a comprehensive plan, I am surprised that they did not address this issue.

Overall, I think the Partnership’s plan will open the eyes of school officials. When it is spelled out in black and white, it is hard to ignore our schools’ sluggish response to society’s digital revolution. Even though it will be a long journey for schools to transform their curriculums, this framework provides schools with plenty of small changes that can be made along the way.

Blogging in the Classroom

I am a special education resource teacher in a career technology school, and I serve students in a variety of classes including Automotive, Architecture, Visual Communications, and PC Systems. Because these content areas are vastly different, I have come up with some ways that blogs could be used effectively in some of these courses.

The automotive instructor and I have been brainstorming ways to use video in his class. We determined that students could develop How-To videos for completing a variety of tasks, including alignments and tire rotations. Keeping with the theme of blogging in the classroom, students could post their videos to a class blog, and “build a body of knowledge,” (November, 2008).

I also thought about how blogs could be utilized in the architecture class. Students are frequently asked to analyze a structure and comment on several areas of its design. To make this task more efficient, the instructor could post the pictures of the structures on a class blog, and students could post their responses. Building upon this idea, students could also be responsible for responding to the ideas of their classmates, which is something they cannot do by simply turning in their own paper and pencil responses in class.

Students are motivated by the use of blogs, which connect them to a global audience (November, 2008). They can serve a variety of purposes in the classroom; taking into consideration grade level and content, there are countless ways to utilize these tools to enhance instruction.

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.