Week 5

At first, I would like to say that this topic is a very good one because it touches some of the most critical matters of the 21^st century in regards to the academic world. At the same time, this topic relates to the non-academic world meaning our daily lives, the way we interact, behave and work. Both critics and supporters bring up some very important aspects and discuss from different perspectives which is really good because it allows the readers to see things being discussed from different points of views and also makes them reveal things they might have never thought of. In her article “Critical Thinking? You need knowledge” Diane Ravitch mentions some facts that really convince me about the importance of knowledge. She does not separate knowledge from skills and I believe this is a very strong message. For example in the article with the same name as a above, in 1916 the federal government stated that the academic education was lacking relevance. The way I understand this has to do with how the students at that time were only taught about things and not how to do them.  Then years later there was an improvement because according to the article, students had to build pet parks, puppet theaters and do other activities in order to practice and improve their skills. Diane Ravitch says it clearly: It is required activity not docility, and awakened student motivation.” She also relates it to today’s skills doctrine by saying that the model used in the early 1900s was similar to that activity philosophy of nowadays.

It sounded funny to me how the fact about how in Roslyn, Long Island in the 1930s children spent more time baking nut bread assuming that this would help them get better in math. There is a last statement to which I completely agree and that is the one where Ravitch states clearly that knowledge must come first in order to begin to reflect and look for alternative solutions.

On the other side I appreciated very much all the articles, but the one that really impressed me was lawed Assumptions Undergird the Program at the Partnership for the 21^st Century Skills.” There were some really good views in there because it had a lot of common sense involved. This article was very domain oriented because it focused on the fact that a lot of groups such as P21 focus only in specific directions such as only business, education and government matters. Well, I think this is good because no one can do everything at once, but at least takes responsibility for teaching certain skills to those students interested on that particular domain. The other thing this article reveals is that a lot of groups like this one only really possess more visions rather than offer “hands on” experience which is directly related to skills. It is also worth to mention the comparison of Steven Spielberg being a great critical thinker in the cinema domain, but probably not a great lead of the Yankees baseball team. This might sound like a funny statement, but to me this conveys a great message. And the message is that without having sufficient knowledge, we cannot put any skills in practice nor be a leader.

The supports seem to be very much on the same side I am. “The Value of teaching 21^st century skill” summarizes pretty much in one sentence my point of view:  Our role as policy makers, educators, business leaders and parents is to provide the future students with a strong curriculum, meaning to fuel up with knowledge so later they can be useful into practice as skills in order to succeed. I am very much for getting knowledge first and then feeling obligated to use this knowledge in a skill.

Based on personal experience it has happened many times to me to put my knowledge into practice. I started teaching piano when I was only sixteen years old and didn’t know much about music theory, so I didn’t have much knowledge even though I could play piano well. I noticed that I could not explain everything academically because my knowledge was limited, but only after I learned a sufficiently about music theory I was able to teach comfortably and improve my teaching skills even further.

Week 4 - The Digital Week-

After browsing through each and every single strand, I finally decided about one that would match with the content of my lesson. I must admit that it was really hard to find the one that could fit my ideas, but anyhow I adapted it to the best I could. In the beginning I was skeptic about sedon graders and blogging, hmmm... how would second graders perceive blogs? But I did some research and this is what I found - How Do Second Graders Perceive Blogs?

The strand I chose is: Creativity and Innovation

Grade:2

Content Statement: The use of digital tools and media-rich resources enhances creativity and the construction of knowledge.

CPI 8.1.2.B.1: Illustrate and communicate original ideas and stories using digital tools and media rich resources.

This In this case the use of blogs would be great because I could assign them to build the blog as group project where they can all combine their information and put it together in paragraphs. For example they could write about Mozart in three different paragraphs:a) Early Life b) Famous Woks c) Mozart's Music Today

Students will have a possibility to be introduced to music history lessons illustrated by pictures and also short music theory lessons. This way the focus of the class would be stronger and everyone will think in unison.

The Wiki Week:)

I would also like to blog about the wikipage that was due today. I enjoyed doing this assignment even though it gave me a hard time finishing it because I accidentally missed the video professor Bigsby had posted. In the beginning I created my own account not being aware that I needed to start it from the class' wikispace. I realized people weren't able to access my page and there was something I hadn't done right. Thank to professor Bigsby, I followed the instructions and managed to paste my content from my own wikispace to my own page on the class wikispace. You can all take a look at it whenever you can.

Wikispace offers a really good amount of space to a teacher because as we all know there are a lot of dedicated and creative teachers among us for whom a webpage wouldn't just be enough, so wikispace gives you that opportunity to do "more." You can be more creative without being afraid that you will complicate things whereas with a webpage you must be always careful when it comes to putting things in order because you don't want to overwhelm the students or make them feel like they are getting unnecessary information. The webpage is almost like an official must when it comes to the school district's requirements, but the wikispace as far as I know is more like an optional thing where you could expand your creativity and share it with whoever is interested.

Week 2 The Teacher's Webpage

I think it was such a lucky coincidence because once I clicked on the link provided by professor Bigsby, I chose to go through the Saddle Brook district page and saw a few teacher webpages there and found a webpage which really impressed me. Nevertheless, I also decided to go through other webpages of other school districts such as Paramus, Hanover, Fair Lawn etc., but I found them to be very not in "depth" because most of them had either too much unnecessary teacher background information and a very few useful links, or were very poor on information and not updated.


The one that really impressed me was my first click, Mrs. McGuire's Class Webpage. Mrs. McGuire is a faculty member who teaches second graders at Helen I. Smith elementary school in Saddle Brook here in New Jersey.  If you navigate through her webpage, you will see clearly how she has all the subjects listed on the side, her schedule, some useful links that are related to the subjects she teaches and also a site map. I tried to imagine myself as a parent for a moment and I found it very helpful to navigate through this webpage because of the following reasons:

 I could find everything very easily without having to spend a lot of time. The webpage was very artistic and childlike unlike some other webpages. If I needed to see what my child's homework was then I clicked on the homework link. In order to learn about the  math program  I clicked on the math link. If i needed social studies then i clicked on social studies etc. If I wanted to get my child involved in extra curricular activities, the links the teacher provided were really great. In other words, her webpage is very informational and humble.

 I recommend Mrs. McGuires webpage format to the future teachers because it is very helpful and easy to use. I am sure that parents will love it.