While looking through the website "Partnership for 21st Century Skills" it was interesting to see the resources that were available on this website. One link that I clicked on took me to another website called Edutopia which was created by The George Lucas Educational Foundation. On this website were tons of resources to help teachers integrate technology. It also has videos of teachers using different technology, or a variety of good teaching practices, in the classroom.
http://www.edutopia.org/
http://www.edutopia.org/video
On the website "Partnership for 21st Century Skills," I found a list of the states that have adopted this program and was surprised to not see California as one of these states. It was interesting to read that its focus is on implementing skills in the following areas, critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation, within standard assessments and professional development programs. It is so important for educators to incorporate activities that develop these skills into the classroom environment in order to prepare students for the professional world. However, I am not fully aware of how to successfully do this within my own classroom environment. Some of the resources from these websites give me an opportunity to understand them and see how they are used with students.
It was interesting to read how information about the skills students will need in the professional world was developed based on the assistance from many businesses. After watching the videos from our resources this week, it was also interesting to see how aligned the intitiatives on this website are to the skills Dr. Thornburg discussed.
There are a ton of resources through this website that I would like to look into further. The Edutopia website is also a great one for resources. Spending time to look through these resources will help me to understand how to better implement critical thinking skills into the classroom environment.
