Implementing 21st Century learning

I feel it would be important to implement the Learning and the Innovation skills to prepare our students for the real world out there. This should especially be happening in the Secondary level in the Math Science and Government areas. In my 1st grade classroom I have used this learning in the problem solving area on a daily basis. I always pose a story problem to the students each day that uses more than a one step answer. This gets them thinking right off the bat in the morning. We have also used the 21st Century learning in our Science. We are posing problem solving situations with our HOT skills in our experiments that we are doing with our plants.

I feel the Innovation skills will help the students down the road with their Life and Career skills. It will help them to become more productive and rsponsible in the world if they are problem solving on a daily basis, and not just letting others do it for them. The 21st century learning also brings out the leadership and accountability in a student. I hold them responsible for coming to the smartboard to know what to do for the activity. They are also accountable for group work on the smartboard to for when they share out as a group on their experiment or activity they are working on.

These skills give them further knowledge in the area of Information and media, and Technology skills. Technology is chaging everyday, and with the use of 21st Technology skills in the classrooms, this allows them to open their window to a brighter future. They are getting an awareness as to how important technology will be in their future, and how they will need to know these skills to get a professional job when the time comes.

That is why I believe we teachers need to be there with the new Technology skills for our students, so they will be prepared to their best ability when they go out to make something of their world.

Connectivism...from the video

I am as connected as I make myself. Which lately, I have found more websites to go to for information on our class curriculum, and I have done more research for myself in the technology area. I have this Blog, and hope to soon start my own personal one. I also just set up my own Facebook, and I am learning to use that. I have enjoyed the opportunity to learn with the Smart board. I really could not teach without it, and use it for every single teaching point in the day.

I would consider myself as a 21st teacher and learner. I do not want to stop learning just because of my age...I am always willing to learn new things, because I want to do them. I am also a 21st teacher, because I have shown students websites and technology to use for information that they are looking for. I have also helped parents find things they need for their children. I try to post websites to promote learning for my students onto my newsletter.

With this 21st learning tool of technology I feel I am supporting my students to organize and differentiate their work in the classroom and at home. I hope that they are setting up their own network of sites, etc. to share with others that they will teach.

This in turn will make us all "connected!!!" That is an awesome thought!

My most successful lesson this week was when we were working on shapes for our Geometry lesson. I had the students split up in to 4 groups. Three of the groups were working on attributes dealing with a guessing game, and making an attribute train on the floor. The other group was working on their math box page. The group I was working with at the smartboard was working with fact circles and interactive dice for the number to add to the numbers in the circle. We also used the shapes to make and fill in with color a picture. This was the target to make a picture of something using the different shapes. So the students chose a shape and a fill in color. They really liked it and enjoyed learning the shapes, and using the smartboard. All the students go to rotate throught the activities. At the end we moved our pictures on the line to see how they felt about knowing their shapes. It was a good way for me to see how they felt they undrstood what we did. Most of them got the target.
In the future My principal has asked if we could put the GTC chart onto a smart board notebook page so we can just move the targets around when they become the different forms of work for us. We are going to work on making something like that for the grade levels. That way they where know where they were with each area and if it is learning work or adaptive work or standard work. We thought it would be a fun thing to create for the teams.

Time

I made a lesson for our math class on Time.
The students saw the clock divided into fractions for quarter hour.
They had to print the time onto the smart board using digital time and slide the fraction pieces to show that time. Students were also using their slates to show this...to involve all the students. We also played as teams of five too, to show the group cooperation.