Technology and Today's Students

This week, the task for my master's class was to create a podcast about the children and their experience with technology. Unfortunately, not teaching over the summer made this project incredibly difficult for me. I would like to thank the parents and three incredible children for their help in this process. I also appreciate all of my friends on facebook for taking time to interview their kids, so I would be able to support my findings more effectively. Finally, I huge thank you to a friend with superior knowledge in broadcast communications; I learned so much from you during this process and I cannot wait to incorporate podcasts into my classroom.

21st Century Learning

The topic of 21st century learning is not new for me. However, I had never really quite understood what it was. In today's society, our children are expected to know so much more than ever, in order to fully function in the working world. In looking at the The Partnership for 21st Century Skills website, I am realizing how much I did not know and how I have not fully been preparing my students for their future.  

The mission of the partnership states that all students in the United States need these skills in order to be successful in the business world. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these skills, they include knowing the general curriculum, (English, reading or language arts; mathematics; science; foreign languages; civics; government; economics; arts; history; and geography.)  as well as something called the "four c's" (critical thinking and problem solving; communication, collaboration; and creativity and innovation.) 

What I found surprising on the site is that there were many states working on this initiative and Connecticut was not one of them. Being a teacher in Connecticut, I am wondering why we have not jumped on board. Is it because our schools are behind in state testing? After reading an article about "The New Literacies," stating that many districts are behind in online reading skills because of state testing pressures, (Miners & Pascopella, 2007) I am beginning to think this may be true. At least coming from my own experience, I am under pressure to bring up those scores and I am not really thinking about teaching my students online skills that they should know, especially since they are not tested. However, what happens in the future when the state test is online? How can I support my students when this happens? These are the types of questions we should be asking ourselves. It would be nice to see Connecticut join the partnership eventually, for now, I may just start looking at the Massachusetts standards and resources. 

Resources: 

Miners, Z., & Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration,43(10), 26–34

Classroom Blogging

Blogging has the ability to function in many ways within a classroom. Last year, I created a website for my sixth grade classroom and was able to actually get my feet wet blogging with my students. If you’re curious about it you’re welcome to check it out: Ms Constantine's Website

I mainly created the blog for my homeroom students to have somewhere to discuss and interact with topics and themes we were reading about during language arts class. However, it quickly turned into a current events blog for my three social studies classes, which seemed to go rather well for a while.

During the time I began the blog, Egypt was going through its government crisis. I thought, what better way to discuss Ancient Egypt in my classes than to have them connect what they are learning in the classroom to real life events in Egypt. Many students took on an active role in reading the articles I had chosen and responding with their thoughts and questions.

What I found unfortunate was there were some students who did not participate, mainly because they did not have internet access at home. Due to this, I allowed participation on the blog as extra credit. Some students used their time in the media center to log on and some went to the public library. I was beginning to notice that there were a couple of students who were incredibly engaged in online conversation and I was seeing a spark in their learning that I had not seen in a very long time. Unfortunately, we were so wrapped up in standardized testing that we stopped blogging.

I hope, in the future, I will be able to manage blogging much more effectively. As I am going through my classes for my master’s degree, I am learning so much about including technology into my lessons. Blogging is such an important skill for our students to learn about, especially since they will be using it for the rest of their lives.

Embarking a Technological Journey

As a part of my master's classes, I have been instructed to create a blog. In the past, I have always been incredibly leery of writing about my job and posting it all on the internet. Educators are looked upon as role models in this society and everything we say or do is under scrutiny. Many educators have lost jobs for posting something on a social networking site, and I have felt as though a blog could have the same issues. However, here I am, starting my journey.

Here is a little about me for those of you out there that I do not know. Currently, I am 27 years old and have been teaching sixth grade for 5 years at a school in a suburban district. I began working towards my master's degree this past January at Walden University in integrating technology into the classroom. Although I am incredibly excited about it, I am also very nervous. Technology has always been a scary thought in my mind and I chose this path because I know I need to be able to work with it and continue learning all I can because it changes constantly.

As this is my first posting, I am unsure of what I could be writing about in the future. So, I leave you with this question: what educational topics would you like to read about?