Review of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I recently checked out the website for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (www.21stcenturyskills.org) and I was slightly surprised by what I found. I guess that I assumed that 21st century skills referred mostly to technology because of the significant advances at the present time. I was surprised to find that 21st century skills referred not only to technology, but also to critical thinking, problem solving, and communication. It makes total sense to me now that students today need to master these skills in order to not only survive in the workplace, but also in life in general. I suppose I needed that fact pointed out to me by a website. This website also gave a lot of other information as well as resources for teachers.

What does this mean for my students? I think this means that I need to find other things to teach them other than basic math and reading skills. This is not saying that these are not important, but I also need to concentrate on enhancing their communication skills. They need to be able to effectively communicate their wants as needs as well as be able to receive information from others. They need to not only be able to tell me an answer to a question, but they need to tell me how they figured it out. Does this make sense? As many of you already know, these skills are already difficult for students with special needs. The question is... how do we fix it? Anyone have any concerns or suggestions?

Using Blogs in the Classroom

I have been learning recently about how to use blogs in the classroom to enhance student learning. I think that they could be beneficial in the sense that you can use them to create classroom discussions in which all students are on an even playing field. However, I struggle with how to include my students in blogs as they are unable to write (either on paper or on the computer). My students have multiple disabilities (both physical and mental) and range from grades K-3, so including them in some activities is challenging. One idea I have is to collaborate with a teacher in the general curriculum to create a blog in which students can answer specific questions about classroom content (e.g. a story read, or science experiment) and pair the students up so that an advanced learner is with a student who might be struggling (including all students, not just students with disabilities). Depending on the student, I might make up a corresponding sheet using pictures so that a student can understand what is being asked even if they cannot read. I also might include multiple choices to the question using pictures so that the student can easily dictate their answers (especially if they are non-verbal). If the student is unable to type or put their responses to the blog into words, then their partner can help by typing their responses for them. Of course this is not fool-proof. Like most ideas, it has flaws. For example, students would have to be monitored carefully to ensure that one person is not just simply doing ALL of the work.

What do you think? Would this work? Do you have any other ideas that might help? I welcome your feedback!

Welcome to My Blog!

Welcome educators and parents alike! I teach students with special needs and I am always looking for ideas to use with them. Please feel free to add your comments or ask questions. I will gladly help if I can but I am also interested to learn from other educators. When sharing, please remember to be discrete about personal information, especially names of your students. We must respect confidentiality.

For today, I would like to discuss using technology in the classroom. My students have multiple and often severe disabilities so a majority of the the technology used in my classroom is communication devices of some type. I am currently taking a course that discusses using blogs, wiki's and other technological services in the classroom, but I am struggling with how to use these things in my classroom. Any suggestions? Has anyone used these things in your classrooms? If so, any success?