Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I am a fan of the overall idea of this website, because I do think that with technology changing so rapidly, we need to incorporate it into our lessons. However, as I quickly glanced through the site, I noticed the "core knowledge or 21st century skills" section and had some strong opinions.

First of all, E.D. Hirsh looks like he went to school in the Little Red School House. Of course he is going to be against teaching technology because he grew up without it and is probably too old now to need it. He is simply "old" fashioned. I would like to see Mr. Hirsh manage the technology we will have in 15 years when these young students graduate college. It seems like he doesn't understand the future reliance on technology. He probably has learned from textbooks his whole life and is not aware of the new teaching trends. Simple things such as groupwork and using dry erase boards to make learning more fun are, most likely, not in Mr. Hirsh's plan book. There are so many innovative ways to teach that I believe Mr. Hirsh is putting students at a disadvantage by being "old school".

Hirsh's argument is that we should be teaching 'core knowledge'. Young teachers are equipped with the skills to teach the core knowledge by 21st century skills. These two methods can easily be intertwined. Teachers could use blogs or online games to help students learn vocaulary and other core knowledge. E.D. Hirch would know this if he wasn't living in the past.

QUIA Website

I came across this website while I was student teaching a few years ago. The site is http://www.quia.com/ and it has some great online activities. I usually break the students into groups and have each group move to a different learning center. One of the centers is the computer station where the students play fun activities and games on the computer. The homophones activty worked extremely well to teach the students their meaning.

Some of the site you have to pay for, and some is free. They have a huge math section which allows the students to answer specific grade level questions on the computer. It is even broken down into lessons.