21st Century Learning.

Is there a place for 21st Century Learning in our schools? Of course there is. Does this mean that we need to eliminate content and the gathering of knowledge in order to incorporate 21st Century Learning? No, that makes no sense at all, although it seemed like several of the critiques of 21st Century Learning portrayed it as just that. The reality is that we need to incorporate 21st Century Learning into the confines of the curriculum that we already teach. 

The world is changing more rapidly than any person could ever change. Sir Ken Robinson makes a wonderful point in his video by pointing out that we are supposed to be preparing students that are starting school now to work for the next fifty years when in reality we have no idea what the world will be like in five. One thing we do know, however, is that technology will only become a larger part of schooling as the years pass and more advanced technology comes along. It is for this reason that students MUST be introduced to basic and advanced technological concepts early on in schooling. By the time that these students leave college and are ready to compete in a global economy they need to be versed in the newest technology to have any chance of coming into a good job. On top of that we need to equip students with the tools to adapt even after they are out of school so that they can continue to evolve as technology evolves. What does this mean for teachers? It means that teachers need to be just as fluent in this technology as the students that they are teaching. This is something that was not nearly as necessary ten years ago, proving Sir Ken Robinson's point on how fast the world is changing. It will require extra education and dedication from the educators of today and the educators of tomorrow in order to integrate technology successfully into the classroom and prepare students for life after school. 

From my experience tutoring in several Newark and Montclair schools throughout the years I have found that collaboration between students is essential for the growth of social skills and academic skills. Students that are not comfortable or hesitant working on overwhelming projects alone can find comfort in the helping hand of somebody that is going through the same thing. A second point on this, which i've made before, is that some students don't feel comfortable raising questions or putting forth ideas to an instructor because they don't want to be embarrassed if they are wrong. From my experience a lot of this disappears when the groups are made up of other students. This prepares students for their future careers. There is not one job that students will be vying for that doesn't require collaboration among co-workers. Teachers, businessmen, construction workers, engineers, pilots, and ANY other job is going to require you to work as a team to maximize productivity. This process starts early and the social skills required to do that can be cultivated in the classroom. 

All in all, 21st Century Learning is something that is absolutely necessary for students moving forward as long as it is done in the right way. Collaboration, critical thinking, and technology integration cannot completely replace the knowledge that students must acquire in order to understand certain concepts. There will always be a place in schooling where students need to gain knowledge and learn information in content areas but these goals can be accomplished through things such as group activities, on-line class wikis/blogs, etc. that incorporate the 21st Century Learning method. 

Week 4

Ever since we were assigned to create a wiki I have not been able to stop formulating ways that they could be utilized in my classroom. The ease that they can be created with and the many ways they can be used are the main attractions to this form of technological tools.
The strand that I would incorporate into this lesson is Creativity and Innovation because I believe that these are two very important things to put into a literature/writing class. Students need to be willing to take risks and not be afraid to be as creative and different as they so choose. In an English class there are often many right answers to a question and if a student is too afraid to explore all of the possibilities than the class is a complete waste.
I am going to be assigning this project to my ninth grade class so the content statement is: The use of digital tools and media-rich resources enhances creativity and the construction of knowledge.
The Cumulative Progress Indicator for this assignment is: Synthesize and publish information about a local or global issue or event on a collaborative, web-based service.
As I mentioned before I am going to have my students use wikis in order to create on-line newspapers. The students will be placed into groups of four and each student would be responsible for choosing one section that they would like to include in this newspaper (sports, movies, music, books, etc.). Once each student has provided an idea for a section in the newspaper, each student in the group will write ONE STORY FOR EACH SECTION. For example, there will be four sections in the newspaper and each student will write four stories, one for each section, for a total of sixteen stories. Once the students have peer reviewed and allowed me to review each one of the stories than they can begin their task of putting the newspaper together using their group wiki. They will be required to use pictures, creative formatting, and video if they so choose. Of course the stories must also be written well (good grammar, correct information, etc.). The stories must also be cited correctly and the research tools that are used must be reliable.
All together this activity will teach students how to use a useful tool such as wikis effectively. It will also force them to sit down and examine the world around them. Maybe instead of going on Facebook, they'll check out some news sites. Instead of watching cartoons they'll read the newspaper or watch the news. It will allow them to express events going on in the world around them creatively through the use of technology. As I've mentioned before, students that are having fun and moving outside of their comfort zones while learning stay much more engaged and, I believe, will eventually learn more.
This assignment could also be looked at under the strands:
a. Technology Operations and Concepts because they will be learning to embed pictures and videos and be learning how to format text in effective and creative ways.
c. Communication and Collaboration because these students will have to work together in order to make this newspaper accurate and well presented. They will be able to help each other with difficulties that arise throughout the process.
e. Research and Information Literacy because these students will have to research the stories that they are writing in order to make them as accurate as possible. They will need to practice sound research practices to ensure that everything they write is cited properly and is truthful.

Wikis as a Tool in the Classroom.

For this week's assignment I decided to create a wiki on one of my favorite topics in the english/literature field that I am studying: poetry. I tried to push forth the idea of why some people get started in poetry and I posted some resources that may help students begin writing. The first website I posted is full of scholarly articles, famous poets, and other useful tools that can used in research or for personal growth in the subject. The other site I posted is a commonly used site that can be posted on by any aspiring poet. It gives people the chance to share their poetry with others that are in the same position. It also gives everyone the opportunity to read and critique other's poetry. From there I posted some of my favorite poetry through videos and text. I tried to find videos that exemplified the way that you can combine poetry with other areas such as art and music.
I can see how a wiki could be an incredibly useful classroom tool. For one, unlike a blog, everyone in the classroom could contribute to the wiki directly. Sure, people can comment on my blog but they are not adding directly to the page and making it a more useful page for the next person that visits it. Perhaps there are some things on my poetry wiki that I didn't include and others might think that it would be helpful to add some stuff. This interactive site allows somebody to add on and improve the site at the click of a button.
The list of uses for the wikis really inspired me to think about how I could apply these tools to my future classroom. I specifically love the idea of having mock debates, dong literature circles, creating a class newspaper, and multi author stories. These are all assignments that I have done throughout my school career but adding the technology aspect prepares students through English education and keeps them up to date on the current technology, which is one of the most important things in today's fast changing world. Before this assignment I had never worked with wikis before but finding out how much fun I could have with them makes me realize how much fun my future students would have using them. It is much easier for students to learn if they are engaged and having a good time while learning.

Shore Regional High School Website.

I explored many school's websites and found it interesting that many of the schools I was checking out didn't require teachers to have websites because they can be incredibly helpful tools. I eventually settled on a pretty good teacher website from Shore Regional High School. It is the website of a music teacher named Mr. Kevin Pryor. What originally struck me about this page was right from the start he sold the music program on the homepage. He describes the program as "award winning" and goes on to name the numerous programs that students can enroll in. This includes marching band, jazz band, concert band, music theory, and a few others. This fascinated me because in my high school there was band class and music class. If you didn't want to take one of those two than you didn't get to study music.
Each class has its own section on the page and he doesn't skimp on the amount of information that is provided for each. For example, the chorus section of the page includes the syllabus and the schedule of practices and performances, which is to be expected. He also provides a large amount of recordings that students can use to practice for performances. Under the Band tab he provides another large selection of recordings to practice with. Just by reading the assignments it can be told that Mr. Pryor is a demanding teacher who loves to challenge his students. The assignments that are listed are very in depth and, even as a musician who has played the saxophone for many years, they seem to be difficult.
I have already discussed the reasons that this site is helpful to the students but how is it helpful for the parents of those students? Well, in many places music is an elective. It takes time outside of school, extra funding, and a pretty large commitment if one is to be successful and get everything out of the program that he or she can. Having an instructor that puts this much time and thought into the website for his classes gives parents a confidence that their children aren't wasting their time in the program. Everything is laid out logically and the site is very easy to use if a parent ever needed to contact him or check up on the assignments of their children. It is set up in a way so that there is no room for confusion.
As a side-note, although I didn't notice this when I first began writing this post, Mr. Pryor actually graduated from Montclair State. Just pointing out a strange coincidence.

Shore Regional High School Website.

My Experience With Technology.

When it comes to technology I would categorize myself as "average." I own a Macbook Pro and have, after about a year, figured out how to do pretty much everything on it. I also own my first smartphone, the iPhone 4s, and have figured out that pretty well too. On the subject of blogging this actually isn't the first blog that I have been involved with. I am also on a blogging site called Tumblr and have found that it gives much more room for exploration and customization than Facebook or any other social networking site. I use it to post original writings, workout logs, pictures, and any other entertaining things that I can find while exploring the site. I find this to be a pretty good resource to find others that share my interests in writing, music, humor, and being able to share all of this with others.
My opinion about technology in the classroom is that it is a wonderful resource. Until I began at Montclair State in 2008 the exposure to technology in school was very limited. The amount of information that can be found through the library's database of scholarly articles and online books is amazing and has proved invaluable when writing my countless term papers over the last four years. It is  phenomenal how information can be recalled, from the classroom, at the drop of a hat and applied to the current lesson. The advantages of technology in the classroom also come with the downsides of this technology. Especially when it comes to college courses there often seems to be more time being spent on Facebook or playing games then taking notes or locating information that could prove useful to the lesson that is being taught. I tried taking notes on my computer when I arrived in college but in the end it just proved to be too big of a distraction for me. It seems that I will always be a pen and paper kind of person when it comes to taking notes. In short, I believe that technology needs to be truly integrated into the classroom but I don't believe that technology should become the classroom. There is still value in reading books on paper and being able to write a quick note in the margin or being able to connect
related points in your notebook by drawing an arrow across the page.
A couple things really struck me about the article and the video that we were assigned to watch for this week. I was particularly impressed with the way that the teachers weren't only using the technology to teach lessons straight from the curriculum but they were also using the technology to get students to learn about their cultures. This idea that teachers shouldn't just teach students about a certain book or subject matter but should teach students how to go home and continue to learn on their own is essential to the growth of the education system. The lessons that the teacher taught about "Amistad" were greatly enhanced by the fact that students could dig deeper by doing extra research.
When I was tutoring during my undergraduate classes I developed a big belief that students should always be helping other students. Sometimes a student is too ashamed or intimidated to ask for help from an instructor but would feel comfortable voicing problems with another student. The GenYES program impressed me to no end because I feel that it would solve so many of the problems that I encountered throughout my education. By having students work with teachers and having the teaching and learning go both ways, students begin to feel more as equals. The intimidation factor will begin to melt away and an open dialogue can ensue. The younger generations are learning about technology much faster than the older ones and in order for teachers to become comfortable enough with this technology to utilize it effectively in the classroom there is nobody better to turn to than the students.
Technology integration is an important part of education today because the times are changing faster than most of us can. Technology can keep us up to date on the newest strategies, information, and anything else we could possibly need to bring into our classrooms. One of the last lines of "Learning to Change - Change to Learn" really made me think about the future of the education system. At around the 5:00 mark of the video one of the speakers remarks that it is the "death of education but the dawn of learning." It is a very true statement and it means that we can't rely on the outdated textbooks and hundred year old strategies in order to teach students and keep up with the rate that the world is changing. It is time to learn how to learn again and the only way to effectively do that is to successfully bring technology into today's classrooms.

About Me.

Hey everybody, my name is Chris Williams and I live in Colonia, New Jersey. I graduated with a bachelor's degree from Montclair State in the Spring of 2012 and after having worked several odd jobs since, I decided that it was time to get back to school and finish what I had started. I am currently studying to receive my Masters of Teaching English. Reading and writing are my two passions and you can usually find me with my nose in a book or jotting story ideas in a notebook. Some of my favorite writing would have to be the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.R.R. Tolkien. Another thing I love to do is create music. Throughout the years I have been the singer of several bands that have played around New Jersey and I have also played the saxophone since fourth grade, although it has been a while at this point. I am a diehard sports fan and root for the New York Yankees, Giants, and Knicks. I played baseball and football my whole life through high school and attribute that to my continuing dedication to working out and staying as healthy as possible.  I've been in a relationship for four years and am very lucky to have someone that can put up with me all the time and motivate me to move forward in my life and work towards my goals. All in all, I'm in a very good place in my life and I'm excited, albeit a bit nervous, to start this next chapter that will hopefully end with the beginning of my teaching career.