Partnership for 21st Century Skills

For this week’s posting, I would like to introduce a website called P21.  The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills (P21) is a national organization that advocates for student learning to include more 21st century skills in order to keep up with the fast paced changes taking place in the world today.  Their web site provides resources, tips, and tools to help administrators, teachers, parents, and community members keep up with the latest technology research and trends.  The teaching of the 3Rs and 4Cs is an integral part of this organizations philosophy.  As shown in the figure above, the core subjects (3Rs); reading, writing, and arithmetic are the foundation on which the related learning is built.  Historically this has been the case for most educational systems.  However, P21 goes on the core subjects to include the 4Cs, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity as skills needed by all students to be successful in 21^st century. 

Other research helps provide validity to P21’s philosophy.  The publication, Characteristics of a Globally Competitive Workforce identified three foundational skills very similar to the 3Rs and 4Cs proposed by P21.  Their research supports the notion that students will need Basic Skills similar to the 3Rs, Thinking Skills as with the 4Cs, and Personal Qualities as it relates to life skills. 

While exploring the P21 site I was struck by the number of resources available:  In particular Route 21.  Route 21 is an area within P21 that allows teachers to locate specific standards, lesson plans, and videos to aid in providing 21st century skills to their students.  Once logged in, teachers can browse resources by support system, subject, or even skill.  By placing all of these resources within Route 21, teachers are able to quickly and efficiently locate and utilize the information available.   

Although this is an excellent site, one concern I have with P21 is a possible conflict of interest when dealing with business partnerships.  Although not naive about the fact that it takes money to foster change, businesses tend to promote their own agendas in an effort to increase their bottom line: future sales.  As an example, Dell and Apple are both supporters of P21 and each has their own agendas and platforms biding to be utilized in the expansion of technology across the nation.  Will these large international corporations influence which technologies are promoted and placed into classrooms?  If so, will the influences be beneficial to the educational system and students or to the companies selling the technology? 

If the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills continues to grow and partner with more states, every student and teachers will be drastically affected.  School districts will no longer be able to ignore the digital world closing in around them.  District administrators, principals, and teachers must go beyond the status quo and begin to look toward increasing funding, professional development, and exploring more 21^st century assessments in order to prepare our students for the state of their future, not just the state test.  P21 is a great place to start this dialogue. 

References

Bates, R., & Phelan, K. (2002). Characteristics of a globally competitive workforce. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 4(2), 121.

Utilizing Blogs in the Early Years

Teaching ten classes of first and second graders in the use of technology each week, the thought of using blogs was not really a consideration due to limits in reading, writing, and typing ability.  However, after doing some research and speaking with colleagues, I have developed a fun and exciting way to introduce blogging into the curriculum.  Our first grade students already engage in a reading and writing program utilizing Billy Bear.   Billy Bear is a stuffed bear which rotates through all the first grade classes.  Billy Bear goes with his assigned class as they travel to support classes, the lunch room, and even the bus.  When the teachers pick up the students they leave a Billy Bear post-it note describing what he learned in class that day.  As students move around the school each day they reflect on what Billy Bear learned by reading his notes.  It is my intention to take this lesson one step farther by building a blog for Billy Bear (http://adventuresofbillybear.blogspot.com), and have each class submit posts to the blog on a weekly basis. 

The purpose of this blog will be to introduce students to blogging technology at a young age in order to get them accustom to reading, thinking about, and developing responses in an virtual environment. Students will work with their teacher, peers, and me in order to construct the weekly posts about Billy Bear’s adventures.  The blog will give students the opportunity to showcase their talents in a safe and meaningful way.  Students will be encouraged to use photos, drawings, and illustrations along with their writing in order to convey understanding for the younger non-readers who may visit the blog.  Billy Bear’s blog will be open to the public so families, community, and our older students may access the information and offer filtered comments.  Blog safety (Richardson, 2010) is an important element in protecting our students and faculty.  In order to protect privacy, only first names will be used in the weekly posts, parents and student will be given clear expectations of what to expect on the blog, and the Acceptable Use Policy will be reviewed to deepen their understanding of proper web etiquette.     

Once Billy Bear had been to ten of the first and second grade classrooms, he will begin taking on new adventures outside the school.  He may attend field trips, overnight stays, or weekend visits. Upon returning Billy Bear’s guardian will provide a detailed posting for discussion and comments. 

Reference

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Tux Paint

As an elementary school computer teacher, I am always on the lookout for innovative technology that can make learning meaningful and engaging for my students.  A few years back a co-worker showed me one such technology called Tux Paint.  Tux Paint is an open source drawing program for students of all ages.  The program is free to anyone and can be run on either a PC’s or MAC computer.  The software can be downloaded at http://www.tuxpaint.org.  I have used the program on both platforms and the main difference seems to be in the clip-art selection.  The PC version has a more extensive library of clip-art than the MAC version. 

Once installed the program allows students from Kindergarten up to create original and interactive art work, illustrations, shapes, and diagrams.  Their work can then be uploaded to the gallery sections of Tux Paint’s website for peers, parents, and family to share.  The program encourages student to interact with their creations by adding sounds to the visuals and effects.  When students click on a dog in their picture, the dog will bark.  This feature can add a whole new dynamic to a student's learning.

For me this program has been very easy to integrate into my lessons.  It is very student friendly and easy to get the students started.  It only takes a few minutes to install and within five or ten minutes your entire class can be exploring all that this drawing program has to offer.