Choose the 21st Century Skill you believe is most crucial to students' lives outside the school walls.
1. Why is this skill most important?
2. How might this skill be used in your Technology Infusion Plan?
3. How can this skill be assessed?
However, I will get to that in a minute. There is something I would like to talk about first. Technology throughout history has been developed to make our lives easier. Technological advances often take a difficult, time-consuming task and make it much easier, leaving much more free time for humans to enjoy. However, what I have experience in integrating technology in the classroom has proved the opposite. Rather than making my job easier, less stressful, and leaving me more time to create inspiring and effective lessons, my life has become harder and more stressful with little or no time to be creative at all. It seems that teachers are given the technological devices along with a mountain of tools, but are given little or no subject-specific professional development. We are told to we can find everything we need on the internet. I did a search yesterday for "Spanish 1 curriculum". I got 2,000,000 hits. Who has time to search through 2,000,000 sites. There are some wonderful tools out there, yet I do not have the time to search through them all and learn how to adapt them to my particular subject area. I have never in my life felt more stress or more overwhelmed than I do right now. I feel like I have been asked to design and build the space shuttle with a million LEGOS and no directions. I wonder if anyone else feels that way?
Anyway, here are the answers to the questions:
Choose the 21st Century Skill you believe is most crucial to students' lives outside the school walls.
Ways of thinking. Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning.
1. Why is this skill most important? Without the ability to apply knowledge to real-world situations, surviving in the real world is very difficult.
2. How might this skill be used in your Technology Infusion Plan? Utilizing the concept of inquiry infused with technology, I believe, would help to develop my students reasoning and problem-solving skills.
3. How can this skill be assessed? Assessing the students' finished projects using a detailed rubric would be the best way. Also, asking students to apply knowledge with on-the-spot questioning would also check whether students can utilize these skills.
Ways of thinking. Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning.
1. Why is this skill most important? Without the ability to apply knowledge to real-world situations, surviving in the real world is very difficult.
2. How might this skill be used in your Technology Infusion Plan? Utilizing the concept of inquiry infused with technology, I believe, would help to develop my students reasoning and problem-solving skills.
3. How can this skill be assessed? Assessing the students' finished projects using a detailed rubric would be the best way. Also, asking students to apply knowledge with on-the-spot questioning would also check whether students can utilize these skills.
Your Lego analogy is powerful, Leah! I'm sure many others feel this way, too, and I'm wondering if finding a tech mentor would help you out. This could be someone you know at school or even someone online who has forged a path and scoured thru those hits to find the good stuff. I follow people on Twitter for this purpose, but that in itself can be overwhelming. Do you know anyone at your school who might be able to serve as sort of a "filter" for information? Hang in there! : >
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DeleteI think what really bothers me is that sorting through all of that online information is not necessary. I agree that it can be used to supplement or enhance your lessons, but there are wonderful textbook programs available that are all set up to seamlessly integrate technology in each lesson. These programs were put together by professionals that teach the subjects I teach, so they understand my specific needs. The only problem is that I cannot get permission to adopt one of these programs because they seem to think that if we give the kids a device, that is all they need. You would think that teachers would be given every possible resource, within reason, to execute their jobs efficiently and effectively, yet we are denied these resources because the school systems do not want the students to have to pay for a device and a textbook rental. In my opinion a device is a tool, like a desk, not a classroom resource. A classroom resource could be a digital textbook with integrated technology and lots of ancillary support. Unfortunately, I do not have a tech mentor that teaches my subject. :(
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