The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

http://www.21stcenturyskills.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a very cool site. I think it would be awesome if my state was doing more to allow all children access to technology. The site gave advice on how to write an email. I feel like I've wasted my students time doing 5 paragraph essays. This site really changed my views on a few things. I our country needs to do more as well as our states. The only way my county or state would do more was if there was money involved.

How my students could benefit from blogging

My high school students read below grade level and have not passed the state test required for graduation. We use a computer reading program called "Jamestown" in my reading classes. I believe blogging would benefit my students and help them express themselves. One thing I find that most of these students have in common is that they do not take their time. They rush through their reading and writing assignments. I believe that if they knew that other students would be reading their responses they would put more effort in to their writing and this would improve their reading comprehension and other skills necessary to graduate. I think a great way to use blogs in reading would be to have my reading students post reading comprehension responses to a blog and their classmates would have to read, check and respond. I would also have the students work in groups and answer questions, then they would have to check other groups work. All together the questions and answers could be a study guide for a test. I think this would be great for many reading and writing skills.
As computers are used more, all students would benefit from blogging and the reality that what you put on the web is viewed by everyone.

New Blogger

I am very excited to learn all this new technology. I think that the first rule of blogging is that you must believe that what you are writing is worth reading, I hope you all think so.

Thanks, Mary