Journal+for+Weeks+1+&++2

21st Century Learning: How can we best prepare our students for succeeding in the 21st Century? This is really a scary thought because of the lack of rources, equipment and money, in our rural school district. However, with what little equipment that we do have, it can be somewhat possible. The state puts a lot of pressure on teachers these days with all of the incicators that they feel are necessary to succeed in the 21st Century, but I think this is a spot where changes also need to occur. What is important is not what students are learning, but how they are learning as well. As the article states "Now is the time for school districts and states to begin integrating 21st Century skills into education." I feel that by being a part of this Tech grant and course that I will have a jump on 21st Century teaching and integrating important and valuable technological skills for our students to suceed in the 21st Century.

Connecting to 21st Century Students: I beleieve that the class action to 21st student learning is adding internet or computer projects in addition to textbook teaching. However, federal testing keeps most teachers from adding this to their weekly lessons for fear of students "not passing the tests." The "drill and kill" mode is killing the integrity of our children to want to learn about the subject at hand. On the flip side of all of this, is the adult or teacher having to adjust to the new ideas of allowing students to use technology to learnin the classroom. Perhhaps with the right training and knowing that they could capture the attention of their audience (the students), they wouldn't think twice about it.

21st century Digital Learner: WOW! What an eye opener! What a clever idea for this writer to put kids on a panel in front of educators who are use to telling them how it will be! I am just as guilty as the rest of lecturing and telling students in my classrooms how it is going to happen and what happened. And doing it by just lecturing... how boring! I guess some days I don't use what little technology i do have in my classroom due to the fact I probably don't know half as much as my students do about technology- and i am afraid to admit it. But i do like the idea of the students teaching teachers what technology they do know. I just had this happen to me recently with a powerpoint project. I had one student in particular that knew way more than I did with the powerpoint. He was able to help some of the other students with their presentations, in more than just one class. The excitement on his face when I would ask him to assist, or pull him out of another class to assist was priceless! Just over something as simple as powerpoint!

I am using the "question approach" to teaching right now in my LA classroom. We are currently studying Rainforests and Saving the Rainforests. Students were to come up with a question they had about the topic and research it on the web. They then were to make a mindmap to link information that they already knew and the new information together. So far, so good. And again, the enthusiasm is soaring because we are using computers and surfing the net.

The only barriers to all of our technological projects are that the computers in our classrooms are super outdated. So, if we want a little more modern computers we have to go to the computer lab, which is downstairs from our classroom. Not real handy also if another class is already in there working or if we are having library that day. The lab and library are two-fold. Of course like anything else, it will be be a long time coming before our technology is updated. But i am afraid that we are long overdue. Maybe we need the bottom-up approach also.... we need top-down directives with bottom-up input when it comes to not only telling administrators that we need updated technolgy, but also when it comes to engaging students in their own learning! What a statement!!!