Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21^st Century Learning was founded in 2002. Its purpose was to bring together the business community, education leaders, and policymakers to put 21st century readiness in the forefront of K-12 education and to get the conversation on 21st century skills and the importance for all students started (Partnership for 21st Century Skills). The Partnership for 21^st Century Learning has continued to evolve their message over the last 13 years as well as expand their partnerships (Partnership for 21st Century Skills).

This website offers many great resources for educators, policymakers and the community as a whole. I found many of the educator resources to be of benefit to me in my current classroom. The resource I found especially useful is the Roadmap for 21^st Century Learning Environments. This resource is a free planning tool that educators can use to create a plan for transforming the classroom to benefits the students future. I feel that I can really use this resource to support the transformation of my classroom.

One thing that I found surprising is that there are only 40 exemplar schools. Even more surprising is that there are only 19 states partnered with P21.  There are many great companies that are partnered with P21 and for this reason I thought there would be more schools involved. As I continue to explore the Partnership for 21^st Century Learning website I will keep in mind if this is a site that my school can partner with.

Valerie Hicks

Reference

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). Our history. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-history

How I will use this blog in my classroom

A blog is site that can be easily created and updated from any devices or location that has internet connection (Richardson, 2010). The ease of use makes blogging a great tool for teachers and students. I will gear my blog towards the parents and families of my kindergarten students. Blogs like many other online technologies have made communication between parents and teachers more timely, efficient, productive, and satisfying (Pearson, n.d.).

The main page of my blog will be used to keep parents up to date on important information and dates of upcoming events. This is also a great place to solicit volunteers for classroom help, home-helpers and donations. I will also post a snapshot of each week’s objectives, classwork and homework in case of an absence.

I will set up different pages on my blog for the content areas that I teach as well as the special classes that my students attend. They will be for Math, Phonics, Reading, Science, History, Health, Character, Art, Psychical Education, Music and Technology. I will use these pages to share what topics or units we are discussing, provide useful materials and resources (such as links to helpful websites) and showcase student work by uploading it and through photographs. 

I feel my blog is a great way to keep parents in the loop. Since I teach on a Military Base I have students whose family are spread out across the country and even parents that are deployed. This will great place for them to see what’s going on. Parents can also leave comments on a post if they have any questions. This will be a great way to keep parents involved and keep the lines of communication open.
Valerie Hicks

References:

Pearson. (n.d.)Using technology for effective parent-teacher communication. Digital Promise. Retrieved from http://www.digitalpromise.org/blog/entry/using-technology-for-effective-parent-teacher-communication

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3^rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin