The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The website is found to be very interesting and remarkable. Although my state –New Jersey– is a P21 Leadership State, but I have never heard about this organization before. The website provides educators with many resources and online interactive tools which can help them to incorporate teaching the 21st century skills into their classroom.
Just knowing that “to become a P21 Leadership State, a state demonstrates commitment from the governor and chief state school officer” is surprising me because the government is involved as well as business partners.

One of their standards is to engage students with the real world data, tools, and experts they will encounter in college, on the job, and in life. I think this standard meets the federal No Child Left Behind law which includes enhancing education through technology.

I couldn’t find any piece on their website to disagree with, but we need to be reached by them in our schools, not just to hear about a good idea or an amazing website only. Also the success stories are not available online, so I am assuming that there is not yet.

We need as 21st century educators to enhance our teaching practice using the new technologies we have around us. Our students do not need to see big gap between their life in school and at home. The state and the administration are not going to do everything we expect or hope about, but it is our responsibility to use technologies in the classroom to be able to prepare our students for the 21st Century world.

Ideas for blogging in the classroom

As a high school Math teacher, I believe that my students will like the idea of Blogs to do some activities or assignments, and there will be a possibility for enhancing the student’s learning process using this technology in the classroom. I also believe that it will be easier for me to teach my students how to use blogs than it will be for a teacher of younger students, because kids in the high school these days know a lot about the new technologies, even more than their teachers.

I teach Algebra I for ninth graders, and AP Calculus for twelfth graders, and I found some ideas on how blogs could be used in my classroom such as:
1. To post communicating topics especially during long breaks. I found after the Christmas break that many of my students have forgotten much of what they already have learned, and I thought at the time that if we had some sort of communication, I would have posted reviewing assignment to refresh their memories.
2. To post links to web pages where they can do practice problems online that can help strengthen their skills.
3. To post projects or extra credit work, and let them communicate to share ideas and information.
4. To post summaries and assignments for students who were absent to school.

I feel that I am ready to apply these ideas in my classroom, but I am facing one problem that the majority of the students in my school do not have computers or internet access at home. They use the computers before/after school day or they use them at the public library. I think that this problem could create a disadvantage situation for those students. I am looking forward to hearing your suggestions on how to overcome this problem.

Welcome to my blog

My name is Joseph Wisa and I am a high school Math teacher. I enjoy teaching my classes especially the AP Calculus class, those kids are amazing!

This is my sixth year teaching in New Jersey, and I taught almost all Math courses from Pre-Algebra to AP Calculus in the high school.

I am currently working on my Masters degree in integrating technology in the classroom at Walden University, and I created this blog to meet my assignment for this week: "Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society". We are discussing how some technologies allow us to do things differently, while others allow us to do different things. Check back for more information, and feel free to leave your comment, and your ideas are greatly appreciated.