21st Century Skill

As I read through the articles and saw the two videos provided for this week's assignment, I stay a little confused, or rather torn, as to what to believe or which movement to side with. I do know, however, that there were some key things said in some of the content given to analyze that struck me and which I feel I have the need to comment on.

1) In the articles that critic the movement, the very first article by Diane Ravitch she states how she feels as though having these 21st century skills implemented will "put other subjects at margin" and how what matters most is the ability to make generalizations with our brains.

I feel that everything that is being taught in today's schools can all be valuable to students in their futures. Learning a language amplifies their ability to communicate with others, learning math can help them be able to calculate their checking accounts and know how much their spending, and learning English can help them to read between the lines and think critically about things. Every subject is important. Granted, I also feel that some of the aspects stated in the article by Judy Salpeter, are also correct. The skills that the movement is calling "learning skills" and the 21st Century tools elements are ones that I think should be implemented in students acquirement of knowledge. They are both key elements that everyone is required to do now both inside and outside of the school environment, making them viable elements to teach our students.

2) In the 2nd critical article by Jay Mathews, he asked a question that left me questioning the whole movement, "How are millions of students still struggling to acquire 19th-century skills in reading, writing and math supposed to learn this stuff?"

After reading this question I honestly was left perplexed. There are lot of students that need extra help on subjects in reading, writing, and math that trying to add any other skill or subject will just confuse the students even more and leave them upset with their education. Just this one question had me wondering whether or not this movement was necessary. 

3) In the video of Sir Ken Robinson, he says that creativity isn't taught anymore and they are pushed aside to be taught the essentials known as the "core subjects". 

I disagree with Sir Robinson to some extent. I do agree that there are people that are scared to pursue their dreams because of the fact that they feel that they won't find a job, as Sir Robinson said. However, students are being pushed and encouraged on a daily basis by their teachers to follow their dreams and to not give up on them. The majority of the students that pick a career to study in college are studying subjects that they want to know more of, that they love, that they want to be a part of and I feel that their creativity is what got them there. I don't believe that creativity is being pushed aside at all. 

In the end, I find myself in the middle of the movement, not really able to choose a side. I feel that it is absolutely necessary to teach the subjects that are being taught in schools currently. However, I also agree that students should acquire the "learning skills" and comprehend how to use the 21st century tools in order to enhance their skills in their core subjects even further. There are things that I feel could work with the 21st Century Skill and are necessary but other elements that I feel that we could do without. 

Learning Experience: Blog

For the learning experience that integrates technology, I decided to focus on the tech tool of blogs. For the assignment, students will be using a blog to communicate with a student from a hispanic country such as Costa Rica and/or Brazil. The whole purpose of this communication with other peers in another country is to identify any issues in Education that are occurring in countries outside of the United States and find speak to their pen pals about possible solutions that can help those students in which they are becoming acquainted with. This will also be their way to keep in contact with each other, informing one another about what is going on in their lives. Under the technology standards, this assignment would fall under the standard 8.1, strand C: Communication and Collaboration. The grade level would be 12 and the CPI number is 8.1.12.C.1.

For this assignment, students should be able to create and use a blog. They will learn in class how to make one and their options of sites that they can choose that is easier for them to manage. They will also need to know how to go about and search within the blogs to find their student pen pals blog and comment on their posts. Besides having to know how to use the blog, students should be able to conduct research on the Internet about their pen pal's country to find current events as well as they possible solutions to the issues that they become aware of. 

In my content area, students should be able to write their posts in Spanish in order to be able to communicate accurately with their student pen pals. They should be able to use the correct grammar and vocabulary that they are learning on a daily basis  to write their posts in a way in which students in other countries will be able to understand them. 

This blog  would be a great way for students to get a perspective of how students in other countries live and the issues that they will face on a daily basis. It's also a great way to practice their Spanish and it gives them a context as to why its important to learn the language. 

Opinions on WIki

Learning how to use Wikipages this week was great. Being able to learn how to use the Wikipages allowed me to see a resource that teachers can use during their careers to communicate with students, parents, or other people interested in knowing a little more about them. The wikipage I made was about a lesson on Spanish greetings. Although I feel that I could of added more to the page, I wasn't really sure what to put on it. The site was really easy to manage though, which I liked. In the end, I was happy with the end result of my Wikipage. The use of images, different color and languages, made the site more cheerful and engaging.

I can see how this site can be very useful to teachers. They can place all they need to communicate with other on their site. Whether it is homework, lesson plans, worksheets, videos, etc, they can put all their information on those sites to help their students to practice and get extra help on whatever their needs may be. In the end, its a great resource to have available to use.

This week in technology

I have been noticing more an more as I attend my courses and do some teaching assisting that use of visuals in a foreign language classroom are essential. It has come to my attention that the way in which the teachers integrate visuals is through the use of technology whether it is through power point, videos, images, or the projection of worksheets. I feel that although these are all unique ways to include visuals into a unit and or lesson plan, we should try not to use technology as the main tool to do so. While power points can be really helpful and beneficial, for example to teach vocabulary with images, the same thing can be done with props or tangible images. Lets say that one of the activities for the day is to learn the vocabulary on fruit. Instead of doing a power point, the teachers can bring in the actual fruit and it would be a way for the students to both see, feel, and smell what they are learning not just hearing the word and seeing a image projected. While I like the use of technology in the classroom, I don't think it should be over done.

I recently saw a Verizon commercial on tv in which there was a sick child who couldn't go to school. Instead of missing the lesson entirely, the student was able to attend school through the use of a robot, who traveled to the school and project the image of the child on its screen so it was as if the student was attending school through the comfort of his home. At one point of the commercial, the teacher even calls on the student to answer a question, which he answered correctly. It was shocking for me to see this commercial and realize that sooner or later, this was going to be an option for many students in the future. Are we going to have to be teaching students through this new use of technology which takes the place of the student when they are absent? It is going to be interesting to see what new waves of technology are going to bring in the future to our classrooms and how we as teachers are going to have to adjust to it.

Webpage effectiveness of the Bergenfield School District

For this week assignment, we were told to choose a school district and analyze the effectiveness of their website. I choose to analyze the town of Bergenfield and after visiting their school district website, I was very impressed with all the resources they had to offer. As a visitor to the page, you have many links to choose from to get to know more about the district. They have a drop down menu at the top right of the website where you are able to select a school from the town that you would like to know more about. They have two separate links for students and parents to access additional resources provided by the school. After clicking on the link for parents, I was amazed to see that there were three different links where parents can check the progress of their children in school: Infinite campus (where they can check for attendance and grades), homeworknow (where they can check what their children's homeworks are), and Renaissance place (where they can go with their children to practice subjects such as reading and math). Since I wanted to know more about these websites, I clicked on homeworknow where I was able to search as a guest and find a list of schools that were participating with this website. After choosing Bergenfield High school, I was given a list of teacher webpages from the school, each page containing their subject, grade level, class assignments, and homework assignments for the week.

After analyzing the full website along with the additional resources provided to parents and students, I realized that the Bergenfield school district provides a very successful and beneficial website to their community. It is obvious that they are aware of the importance of their page and use it to their advantage. I was even amazed to see that they had a link for Bergenfield in the news where you can see many articles in which they are mentioned, including the article that mentions how they placed in the top ten U.S. school districts honored for technology know-how. That's pretty remarkable, if you ask me.