Book Reflection

Reading this book has me thinking about where education is heading and what changes we will need to make as educators. Technology is becoming more and more a part of our children's lives. Schools need to keep up with those advances to keep students interested and challenged. We are preparing our students for jobs not yet created! Work is becoming less routine and manual, and more abstract, knowledge-based and design oriented. Our education system is going to need to step up to the plate if we are going to be successful in producing graduates with 21st Century skills. Students need more real world problem solving and more authentic learning experiences to make learning last and more useful. Many teachers that have been in education for some time have not been trained to teach like this. We need to educate ourselves by taking classes and communicating and collaborating with other educators. Professional development should be a top priority of administrators. This will ensure a transition from 20th Century schools to 21st Century schools and true success for our students and their future.

Reflection 21st Century Skills

21st Century Skills
21st century skills are the technology or digital skills needed to survive in the 21st century. After reading the book I discovered this may be different for each individual according to your current age if you are a elementary student you are a “digital native” or “net gener” if you are my age you are a “digital immigrant” according to the book (p. 27). I discovered one thing as a “digital immigrant” I love technology and what it can do for my students. As far as students are concerned they are digital natives who need to learn the technology tools and resources in order to survive and thrive in the 21st century. According to the book (p. 142) technology provides great benefits for students especially when it is integrated seamlessly with rich learning content. I can reflect on this concept in my own classroom where I integrate technology in my reading and math blocks daily (and currently I am experimenting in science daily). Do I feel that the students benefit? Yes!
Another important concept of 21st learning skills is the concept of lifelong learning. I think that this quote expresses the need for this “Since we live in an age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a person for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined.” – Peter Drucker (p.151). Because of the constant changing technology and the new technology tools available as a teacher I must prepare my students to be cooperative, problem solving, and strong in leadership skills. I want them to be able to develop the skills to be dependent, independent, and interdependent individuals. They must also be able to be global citizens. I feel the first steps toward this are to embrace opportunities in the classroom to collaborate on projects with students around the globe. I feel these are the keys to the students in becoming members of a 21st century learning community.

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Chapter 8 Retooling Schooling

The focus of this chapter is creating a 21st century school system. First in our global movement toward a 21st century education system we need to work in a Partnership for 21st Century Skills. These include vision, coordination, official policy, leadership, learning technology, and teacher learning (p. 121). Vision needs to be a common and well-articulated vision that is shared among government officials, educators, parents, students, and the business community (p.122). Coordinated changes need to happen in the educational support systems like curriculum and instruction, standards, assessments, learning environments, and professional development (p. 122). All of them need to work together toward a common goal for the 21st century student. An official policy that will be governed by an education authority. Leadership in a 21st century education will require a technology based communication that works efficiently. Learning technology is very important with Internet access in every classroom that allows implementation of handheld devices, laptops, and other learning technologies (p. 124). Teacher learning or professional development will be one of the most important aspects of the 21st century retooling of schools.

Basically the retooling or schools or the structuring of five important support systems that need to work together efficiently in schools consist of: 1. Standards 2. Assessments 3. Curriculum and instruction 4. Professional Development and 5. Learning environments (p. 119). In the 21st century standards will emphasize "what students should be able to do with this content". Assessments that are suggested for the 21st century include: Extended student essays, Observation rubrics on a teacher's handheld device, Online instant polls, quizzes, voting, and blog commentaries, Progress tracking on solving online simulation challenges and design problems, Portfolio evaluations on project work, Expert evaluations on ongoing internship and service work in the community (p. 134). I was drawn to this quote by Lauren and Daniel Resnick, "The problem is not that teachers teach to the test, but that teachers need tests worth teaching to" (p. 130). Hopefully in the 21st century we can move away from "teaching to the test".

It is suggested in the book that in the 21st century for curriculum and instruction that as teachers we move away from direct instruction to more inquiry based learning. It is suggested that 50% of instruction time in inquiry, design, and collaborative project learning and 50% for direct and traditional instruction (p. 135).

Teachers professional development in the 21st century will consist of training teachers to use technology and incorporate inquiry and collaborative projects in instruction in the classroom every day. Learning environments will support technology space and environments. It will also provide space for project work, group presentations, and labs for experiments (p. 140).

The final aspect of the chapter was the holistic (rainbow) model that puts the learner in the center of a larger community of learning support. This rainbow models depicts the student in the center with the next ring being peers, teachers, experts, and parents, followed by the whole learning environment that includes technologies, classroom, home, and community resource. The outer 2 rings consist of learning communities and learning societies. This would include the students national and international services that support the student's learning (p. 148). After reading this chapter I realize that we are definitely moving toward a more global learning community.

Week Three

With today's knowledge age the digital tools our net generation students have access to will give them power to amplify their ability to think, learn, communicate, collaborate and create. With that power come the need to learn appropriate skills. Even when students are more fluent in the use of technology, they will always need teachers and parents guidance.
Our ever increasing age of technology forces us all to adapt to the new ways of communicating, learning, working and living. Technology helps develop independence as it is always available 24/7 but we must become self directed. Cross culture collaboration is possible giving students insight into how we are alike and yet different.
Technology allows us to divide work up among team members. Individuals can take projects utilizing their strengths to produce a creative outcome from the collaboration.
Our job is going to be a challenge to teach all students these 21st century skills along with the core subject areas to produce a well rounded individual.
I liked the quote, "Diversity is the one thing we all have in common". Isn't it great that we can glean knowledge from everyone elses strengths!

What Is Century 21st Learning?

One of the key roles roles for education is to prepare future workers to deal with the challenges of time. The kind of work that needs to be done by anyone who has the expertise, a cell phone, laptop, and internet connection, but we need an education system that produces them. Education becomes a key role in the 21st century. Students graduating from secondary schools, technical colleges and universities are lacking in the basic skills. The 21st century skills gap is costing a business a great deal of money because these people are not prepared. Achieving goals for our time is increasing in powerful technologies we have for communicating, collaborating and learning. To be a productive contributor you need to contribute to work and society, fulfill civic responsibility and carry forward traditions and values. Global forces are coming together to help transform learning to meet the demands of our time and we need to get prepared and get on board.

Section 2 Summary

There are four dominating forces coming together, leading us toward different ways of learning for the 21st centruy: knowledge work, thinking tools, digital lifestyles, and learning research. Knowledge work in the 21st century demands well trained workers that use brainpower and digital tools to accomplish their daily work: digital tools such as cell phones, web conferencing, and databases just to name a few. Technology and digital devices and services are the thinking tools. The rate at which these technoligical thinking tools are growing is astounding. People age 11-31 are growing up in a digital lifestyle. Today, there are many portable devices that people can retrieve communication on: ipod, cell phone, PDA, etc. Learning research is reasearch about how people in the 21st century learn. They learn best through real life examples, internal motivation, personalized learning, and social learning: technology can meet all of these areas of learning. The quote I found interesting is on p. 25: "Computer microchips continue to double their processing speed every eighteen months. The average cell phone has more processing power than all the computers used to plan and run the early space missions." These 2 facts demonstrate that technology is growing at an astounding rate, and as educators, we need to prepare our future generation for that.

Book Cover

I chose this image from Flicker. This is what I hope for my 21^st century students. Including – Critical Thinking and Problem Solving - College, Workplace, and Life Skills – Information and Media Literacy – ICT Digital Literacy (Information and Communication Technologies) - Creativity and Innovation – Communication and Collaboration. Most of all it depicts all the digital knowledge and collaborative skills that is necessary for 21st students.

The reason I chose this book cover is it reminds me of looking at the world through our fingertips. Our world is changing ever so fastly through technology and the children have to know the technology skills to be part of our ever growing technological society. Hopefully by learning the technology skills, they will be ready for the world as they see it and have it at their fingertips.

I chose this picture because it demonstrates engaging students in 21st century skills at an early age. These children are lower elementary and I beleive it's vital to expose our students to technology early on. The more we teach them in their younger years, the more comfortable they will be with technolgy as they get older. They won't have a "fear of technology" because it will just be a normal part of their educational process. This is important because as they graduate and get out in the real world, they will need to be very literate with technology in any career path they pursue. After all, teaching is about preparing our children for the future. Another part I like about this picture is how on-task and engaged in their learning these students are. All eyes are on the smart board and they appear intrigued by the concept they are learning. We all know that when children are on-task and engaged, learning takes place.

I beleive the author chose their book cover because it has 2 children working on a laptop together. Also, there's a boy and a girl so both genders are represented. The children appear interested in what's on the screen, and are working cooperatively together. That is another skill students need to master so they learn how to work well with others, and this pictures shows them doing that while working on the laptop.

book cover

I chose this book cover because I think 21st century skills are the future. I thought it was an interesting concept to circle the word out of a dictionary which is almost an obsolete tool, Most people now days use the internet to look up words. Actual books are becoming thing of the past. In a way, I feel sad about that. There is something about curling up with a good book and the feel and smell of the pages that a computer just can't replace! (A little side note: I went and looked up obsolete in my dictionary to make sure it was spelled correctly! :))

The book cover on our 21st Century Book seems like it was chosen because it shows 2 children involved in doing something on the computer. They are so in to what they are doing that they did not even bother to look up when the picture was taken. How many children do not look at a camera when you are ready to take their picture? Usually they are ready with some sort of smile or performing some action! The future is in technology and we need to get on board if we do not want to be left behind the future generation!
Della Mader

Welcome to Literature Circle Twenty-four!

Your Super Summarizer schedule is as follows:

Section One--Due October 28, Ann Anderson
Section Two--Due November 4, Deanne Cogdill
Section Three--Due November 11, Della Mader
Section Four--Due November 18, Lacy Foskett
Section Five--Due December 2, Deetta Terkildsen
Section Six--Due December 9, TBA