Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a website that is challenging education policies and infrastructure. What I found particularly reassuring was the article Learning Environments Must Break Through the Silos that Separate Learning from the Real World, the article discusses the urgency of schools breaking from the traditional form of education to one that supports the technological advances seen in the real world. However, the article states that we also must be sensitive to the human interaction that takes place within education. Paige Kuni, worldwide manager of K-12 education for Intel Corporation and chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills states, “Learning supports are only valuable if they effectively reinforce human relationships, give relevance to learning and encourage student engagement. Schools must devote themselves to more than the mind-body connection to ensure student achievement" ("Learning Environments Must Break Through the Silos that Separate Learning from the Real World", 2009). As I have said in previous posts technology is a great tool and must be used as such. A tool. There must be discretion and moderation with all that we use and do. When we begin to negate the person as a whole we are no longer educators but simply technicians.

The website is progressive and addresses so many issues, concerns, and ideas that it must be viewed in order to be appreciated. It is up to date and discusses the most recent areas of education-- from legislation to civic literacy.

Learning Environments Must Break Through the Silos that Separate
Learning from the Real World. (2009, January 23). Partnership for 21st
Century Skills. Retrieved March 24, 2009, from
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

I think a blog can actually be a useful activity for foreign language. A friend and former colleague has moved to Peru to further her education and to improve her langauge skills. We are in communication via facebook of all things-- just goes to show how technology is changing communication and networking. We are collaborating on creating a blog for my students and the students with whom she is working in Peru. Ideally the blog would be a quasi-penpal type of activity. The difficulties are ensuring all students have equal access to technology in order to participate in the assignment and how to monitor cheating. I want to encourage students to experiment with the language so in my rubric I have allowed some flexibility for grammar and spelling. This is very difficult for me since these are focal points to any language.

Technology is certainly changing the face of education. Incredibly it seems like just yesterday I was using an overhead projector to display notes and activities, but it's actually been about eight years since I actually had any need for an overhead. Reportcards are no longer mailed home but instead grades are posted to our website. Parents no longer call to schedule a conference but now email you or schedule via the website calendar. I am an advocate of technology I think it has made my job much easier in many respects but there is an underbelly to technology within the classroom that has also complicated and in fact foiled many a lesson plan. I think technology should be used with discretion. There is something to be said about doing things the old-fashioned way.

I have found the start of the class particularly frustrating. It seems activities and deadlines are scattered throughout the class. Making it nerve-wracking to complete all the tasks. I am really having trouble finding a decent blog in which to subscribe for this weeks application. I teach Spanish so if anyone out there knows of a good blog please let me know.