Technology Podcast

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Ever wonder how the adolescents of today view and use technology on a daily basis?  The following podcast dives into that very idea with a handful of 7^th grade students. 

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The 21st century is here whethere we like it or not.  The world is going to continue to change around us and we, as teachers, need to be adaptable and open to change as well.  Many of us do not like change, but we need to think that this not only for us, but more importantly, it is for our students.  The students will not be ready for the future that will be there for them if we do not start making changes now. 

After investigating the website, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, I could not help but agree with much of what I read.  This agreeableness could stem from the fact that I am a math teacher and enjoy technology like many others, so I can see the impact of the ever changing world very clearly.  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills feels that students need to be taught other skills beyond the 3 R’s that our generation grew up learning.  The Partnership does not dismiss the importance of these skills, but it adds on many other skills that are going to be just as important in the future.  These skills include:  critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation (they refer to these as the 4 C’s).  This site also establishes many states that have adopted their ideas through legislature, and my state, Ohio, is one of the many. 

Upon further research, I came across a group that I am familiar with, eTech Ohio which is an established organization that sees the importance of all these skills to the future of our students and makes it their mission to educate and train the teachers in Ohio to help do so.  The eTech organization offers conferences and training sessions and makes other resources available to Ohioans to help bridge the ever widening gap.  I have attended and even presented at their conference in the past and it was very rewarding and educational. 

Teaching is going to be changing for us and we need to be prepared and well informed.  This organization, Partnership for 21stCentury Skills, seems to be on the right track of helping others see the importance of this change.  As a teacher, I cannot help but wonder ‘when will I find time to fit this into my curriculum?’, but that is something that I cannot worry about now.  There are far more important things to focus on... getting our students ready and prepared for their future needs to be on the top of our list.

 

Sample, Data, and Graphs... oh my!

This is an example of how I might incorporate my blog into my 7th grade math classroom.  I feel that using a blog is a great place to bring in some of the technology integrations into the lessons and the classroom.  I would use an idea like the one below as a place to post questions and comments while working on a class project.  It would be a nice place to house and organize peer questions and comments so students can use their classmates ideas to help them.  It is also a nice place to orgnaize links,sites, games, etc. that would be useful for a lesson and topic. 

Survey project:
We have been working together in class to develop a survey that is interesting and appropriate.  You have collected your data from two samples thus far, your math class and 100 total students. 

Using this data, you need to develop two graphs. 

•  One graph needs to be true to the data
• the other one needs to be misldeading to the reader. 

Using the link below to the website "Create a Graph" input your data and create both graphs for your project.  You may print off your graph if your final project is a paper version or you may embed the file into your power point or SMARTboard presentation if you are turning in an electronic version.

Create a Graph

Please post any comments or questions you have about the project or using the website below and I will respond to guide you.  Scroll through your classmates comments and questions as you are working because their ideas might be helpful to you as you are navigating through this project.