Twenty-First Century Skills for Student Commentary

My reaction to the 21st Century Learning program is one of identifying strengths of student development.  Many of the strengths we currently work with in our classrooms include thiinking and problem solving, having to communicate and collaborate in a group to create a project, and learning to be creative with our students.  Music  rehearsal and study do this each day individually and collectively. The process of collaborating to create projects brings out these skills for these students.

 The weaknesses that our current system of education has include a lack of global awareness, Economic and health literacy, and failure to embrace technology as a web 2.0  tool.  Some of our students do not venture out of the county and town we live in, limiting experiences beyond the local area.  How will a student know of other places unless travel occurs, or technology is provided that allows a student to see other places?  Our population is labeled obese by the health officials of our country, yet when we eat somewhere other than home, the portions we receive in many places can feed two people.  Education addresses these problems, however cannot solve them.  Economics is not taught in  our schools as part of the mandatory curriculum for graduation yet this is one of the goals set forth by this coalition.  Currently my school system uses the web as a Web 1 tool.  Everything is locked out for the students.  Many of the programs we expose our students to on the web are based upon getting permission from an administrator at the central office, versus trusting the professional judgement of the educator.  This locks 21st century education out for many of the students I teach.

Graduate School Blog Questions

This blog can be used in the following ways for my students.  First, it helps students with their writing, as they are writing across the curriculum.  A quality check is built in, as their work is accessible by everyone on the internet, therefore making sure they sound smart to the audience.  It is in a familiar format for the students as it uses the same responses they use for a social networking site such as facebook or twitter.  They have access to their instructor and their classmates 24/7, as we can check the blog page at any time.  I can provide web links for my students as a web dig for information for an assignment or homework. 

It is also a place where I can post musical examples for my students.  Students can interact with me using the blog space as an online learning lab.  The students can have links to online instructional videos, creating links to experts for their musical instrument.