Summary+Statement

"Ohio's Technological Past, Present, and Future. =Technology Day 2009: Planning for our Educational Future!" =

Our group's goal was to make our technology day relevant to our great state of Ohio by encompassing many different forms of technology and relating them to engaging activities. We did this by incorporating fifteen different applications of technology throughout nine different content areas. It is our hope that our fourth grade students will become comfortable with both using and incorporating technology into their everyday life. While doing this, they will also enhance their 21st century skills. Each of our lessons has been aligned to the Ohio Department of Education Content Standards and has been supported with scholarly research articles. Our all encompassing goal was to motivate students to achieve 21st century skills and to ready themselves to become contributing citizens in the State of Ohio.

[|The Partnership for 21st Century Skills], an advocacy group with a mission of integrating 21st Century Skills into educational curriculum, states several skills that are needed for all citizens of the 21st century. One such skill is the ability to communicate and collaborate across geographic, cultural, or language boundaries. Our lessons address this goal and skill by integrating new technologies such as blogs, wikis, and Skype. This is also true for our use of tried and true practices such as PowerPoint Presentations and word processing software. Students who participate in our lessons will communicate within small groups and larger geographic groups. In the 21st century and beyond, citizens will become a part of an increasing global environment. They will also be responsible for collaborating in group projects within a business environment. Students who focus on the skills earlier and who do so often will be fully equipped to face these challenges.

In addition to communicating and collaborating, citizens of 21st century must be able to think critically, make quality judgments, and solve complex, multidisciplinary, open ended problems. Our science technological lesson incorporates each one of the aforementioned abilities. Students will be required to research famous Ohio Inventors. While doing so students are required to make quality judgments with the information they locate. After locating and choosing quality information, students are to create a five minute narrated movie presentation. The movie presentations will be inducted into a //"virtual inventors museum"//. When they have finished gathering quality information and producing their five minute narrated movie, students will have gained 21st century skills unknowingly.

Making innovative use of knowledge, information and opportunities is another goal skill highlighted by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. This skill is clearly targeted through each of our content area lessons. Students will be researching databases and creating self produced videos in our Art Class, pod-casting in our science class, and utilizing VoIP technologies in our music class. In each of these content areas students will be making innovative use of learned knowledge. These learning activities are hands on and active. Students will take a primary role in creating their learning experience.

In //A Learner-Centered Framework for E-Learning//, McCombs and and Vakili discuss several learner centered principles and features in practice within 21st century classroom. One critical rationale for instituting technology in the classroom is the effect that it has on the students. They believe that students are more engaged and take a greater responsibility for their own learning. By doing so, attendance rates are increased and discipline problems are decreased. Our lessons were created with this mindset. Our lessons are active, engaging, and just plain fun! Our English classes will be creating blogs of their favorite Ohio landmark and our social studies class will be constructing an electronic time-line and time capsule.

Students taking part in our technology day will become 21st century citizens through each content area lesson they master. Lastly, our technology day is all inclusive. Students who excel in art and music are just as valuable citizens of the 21st century as those who excel in math and science. They will learn the skills needed no matter in which area they prefer.

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