Reflection of EDUC 6712I-1

In reflecting back on this course, I realize I have had many surprising moments. However, the most surprising element about teaching the 21st century literacy skills is the amount of time and ways of integration into my already time restraint curriculum it demands. I do agree though that teaching these skills is a necessity for our students to learn to enhance their knowledge for their future jobs. By teaching these 21st century skills, we are bringing our students closer to achieving the demands they must fulfill for their future jobs. The most startling thought for me is that I am preparing my students for some jobs that do not even exist yet. Since I am still a novice teacher (just beginning my 5th year teaching), I am still pretty current with the technologies in our world and ones that can be implemented in our classrooms. I have integrated some such as, blogs, wikis, and podcasts, into my curriculum already. In order to teach my students the 21st century literacy skills, I plan to continue integrating technologies but in a more critical way. My goal already for this school year and beyond is to integrate into my lessons the 5 new literacies: questioning, searching, evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating (Laureate Education, 2009). I believe as long as we follow by the guidelines of the 21st century literacy skills and try to strengthen those in our students, we are doing our job. I also agree with Mr. Warlick with his philosophy in we need to stop teaching our students how to be taught, but for them to know how to learn and teach themselves (Laureate Education, 2009). Our society has changed and so should teaching and how our students learn. We are a much more hands-on, constructivist society now rather than the traditional ‘being told what to do’ industrial times. Instead of our students being told what to do, we need to have our students questioning what should they do next (what is the next step)—inquiry. Just like Dr. Hartman said we need to teach our students how to develop good questions (Laureate Education, 2009). I strongly agree with this statement. If our students are always expecting someone else to tell them what to do, then we are not preparing them for their future. After this course I have made it a professional goal of mine to take advantage of more of my school district’s technology classes. I am very lucky to be a part of a school district that offers free professional development classes to teachers in all areas. First I will need to go online and register for these classes. After registering I will take my laptop to the classes so I can follow along as the instructor is teaching about the technology skill. Finally I will integrate this new technology into my classroom. Like I stated before, I have already integrated blogs, wikis, and podcasts into my curriculum, however I would like to add digital storytelling, screen casts, and more.
Resources:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). A teacher's perspective: evaluating information online [Motion Picture] Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Author.
21st Century Fluency Project. (2010).The digital citizen. Retrieved September 28, 2010, from http://www.21stcenturyfluency.com/fluencies.cfm
Warlick, David. (2005). The New Literacy: Reading, writing, and arithmetic no longer guarantee students a place in the workforce. A different skill set is in high demand. Retrieved September 29, 2010 http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=263

Screen Cast

Based on the instructions given, I analyzed the following website using a screen cast program, Jing. Please copy and past the following link to view and listen to the screen cast.

http://www.screencast.com/t/OxVVo7c6