21st Century skills Week # 6

I myself are a supporter of encorporating 21st century skills into the teaching curriculum. In today's world you simply cannot compete if you cannot do such a simple thing as use a computer, for example. The difference between being able to use it and not is all the difference between being employed and not. Two years ago my mother newer even turned on a computer, never mind use it. Now in her job, (she works for a chemical company) she has to use it to do shipping or ordering. She uses internet and since she has trouble with her english, she found a website that translates English to Polish. She has a job, and these days it is hard to find one. Just to think that two years ago she could not type, she could not use the internet, I had to teach her everything from scratch, even how to turn on a computer.

The article "21st Century Skills, Will Our Students be Prepared," states that our life is transformed by technology, putting pressure on students to constantly change, and adapt. I myself found the use of technology necessary to get good grades in school. I went beyond just finding links with practice tests and assignments. For my organic chemistry class, which I have retaken, I found website that offers unlimited practice problems involving interpreting spectrum analysis of different compound. After two hours and fifty problems down the road I was able to solve every problem on the intermediate level. I aced the exam and got half the points on the test from interpreting organic spectra which killed me when I took it previously. I studied much harder previously, but only had access to a few problems from the book which I more memorized than was able to learn to interpret them.

In the articel called "The Latest Doomed Pedagogical FAD" The author is concerned about 21st century skills, because his personal experience wasn't a good one. He got a good grade despite learning nothing. My guess is that his group did all the work, and he was too preoccupied with his love life to put his head in the game, but since it was a group project he passed. I think that even with a group project everyone in the group has to do an assigned part, and be responsible for a specific part of the project. If one person in the group does all of the work then working cooperatively with others certainly does't work. It has to be enforced in a smart way in which even if it is a group project, everyone will get his own grade, or situations like this one will take place.

Finally I would like to say that article "Critical Thinking, You need Knowledge" does not give a good comparison to the situation that takes place today. The experiment in which students bake cookies to learn math, is not the same as teaching them to use a computer to do chemistry problems. I believe that in today's world 21st century skills and knowing them are a must, and I believe that they are a key to the future.

Week Five Back to School Presentation

Hello everyone. I have spend all day trying to figure out how to do this presentation. It is not as hard, but it was hard recording it in a quiet place. I should have recorded it at home. In the library it is hard to find a place where you have some quiet, and where at the same time you can be the only one talking. I like this power point presentation with the option of recording your own voice and then the option of posting it on the internet. Every weak I find it a little easier to do these assignments. It seams that slideshare page is down so it took me forever to find an alternate page where I can publish my presentation. If you have trouble try brainshark.com. That is where I posted my presentation.

Belw is a link to my presentation:

Mr stanislawski s_classroom

View more presentations from stanislawsm1

My Classroom

Mr. Marcin's Classroom

Here is my power point presentation. Hope it works. If not my presentation is under this link.

Mr. Marcin's Classroom

Back to School Night

My back to school presentation focuses on keeping up to date with technology in the modern world. In school today you need to have access to a laptop with a wireless internet access. You need to be able to have access to other gadgets like a data cube for storing data. You have to be able to use it not only to get information, but to exchange with others, use chat rooms to work on assignments. Post your own documents online so that others can download them and use them. Technology always changes. Few years ago no one heard of Twitter. Now there are a few big companies up there. Facebook, Google, everyone knows these and people use them everyday. What will come out big few years from now? Maybe Groupon will be the next facebook.

Curriculum

Grade 12

Content Statement: The use of technology and digital tools requires knowledge and appropriate use of operations and related applications.

CPI: 8.1.12.A.3 Participate in online courses, learning communities, social networks, or virtual worlds and recognize them as resources for lifelong learning.

I have chosen this grade and CPI, because first of all I am hoping to be working with seniors in high school, and because I feel that they can learn a lot online. I do know that there is a lot of information out there and if students do not have access to it, they are at a huge loss vs. those who know how to work with technology. Also working together they will be able to help each other, every student being good at doing one kind of problem that the other cannot do and vice versa. When I started college I would have the teacher do a few chemistry problems on the board and assign some problems from the book. That was however, not near enough to get through the class with a good grade. To pass this subject you need a lot more than a few problems that you end up memorizing. Chemistry is about being able to solve millions of problems that you cannot just memorize. However with the internet students now have access to archives of old exams. They have websites that they can use to solve unlimited number of problems and have the computer program tell them right away if they are right or wrong. Having access to technology is simply a must, because those students who don't use it will be at a huge disadvantage to those who do.

Technology and Teaching

Technology is an important tool in the learning process. Today's students don't want to learn from somebody that speaks in a monotone voice and stands with a piece of chalk in front of a classroom. Students these days have access to vast resources of information that the previous generation didn't have. To keep up with their students teachers must keep up with the ever changing technology.

When I become a teacher I know that I will have keep up to date with technology. I will create my own web site and will allow students to have access to practice problems, old tests, and have links to web sites that can be useful. Practice problems would not necessarily need to be printed. I would allow the students to solve the problem on the computer and then the program would allow students to see whether they are right or wrong, what mistakes they made.

Like in the video, Integration of 21st Century Skills; Hygrology I would require each student to use a laptop with access to the internet. Science is very much dependant on technology, and the two are interdependant on each other. Being a science major, simple things like creating your own blog, web page, or power point documents is nothing like working with half a million dollars machine during analysis of substances. If you plan on getting a degree in science having a laptop and using it to learn is a must.

When I become a teacher I certainly would look for a school that would have access to newest technology. I would have no choice, because I feel that if I don't keep up I will end up like the teacher in the video, which after 30 years of teaching finds herself relying on students on help with technology. These days either you keep up or you are Darwind out of the race.

Marcin

Clifton School District

When choosing to write about school districts I immidiately thought of the schools that I went to. The Clifton school district provides an excellent education to its students. Its web site welcoms the parents of the prospective students with pictures and links to videos. When I tried to click to view the vidoes however I was unable to do so, for whatever reason. It said that the link is broken. I can still view the familiar images of the area. I can see the pictures of the high school, then I see pictures of the middle school, and then I see children and young adults in the classroom, by the school bus and in the area. The web site provides links to the people who are in charge of the district and phone numbers to them. Other links include the curriulum that is required by each school. From the elementary school through high school. It provides a draft of what the students need to know. For example when I clicked on summer school link for 6th grade I got to a page that had definitions of things like acute angle and the obtuse angle, and provided difinitions of each. That link is helpful in helping students prepare for class.

Most links that are posted are for informational purpuses only. It reports of winter emergency on the home page, and you can click right away on it for school closing. When I clicked on technology link, I got the names of the people who are in charge of the departments and phone numbers to them. I must say that I am disappointed that I did not see more. I expected to see something more specific. Was hoping to see the pictures of the people in charge, at least, and I was hoping to find something more specific about the program, that might relate to what we are doing in this class.

Information available on this website is very general. The link to the adult evening school is not available until February. I wish that there was more on the web site than information about when the report cards are due, and how to contact the administration. What I feel is missing is the information about advanced curriculum that would have students end up enrolled in AP classes by the junior and senior year in high school. I do feel that they should post a catalog with the program, and also I do wish that I could watch a video presentation of the school, or the school district in general.