The 21st Century Student

Picture taken by Rachel using her iPad.

Tonight I want to dedicate my post to one of my students because today she made my day special. Most of all she made me proud to be her teacher. For over a year, I have spent my time being an advocate for 21st century education and I often times hear jokes about technology and questions on why changes should be made in the classroom. My answer tonight is for students like my student, Rachel, the 21st century student.

At the beginning of the year, I had hopes for my class to blog, but with the adjustment of going from a traditional classroom to a 21st century classroom many of the students were not quite ready to blog with all the other changes they were experiencing at the time. Recently, on her own, Rachel started mentioning her blog. Curious, I asked her about it and she said it wasn't a real blog, but an area on a computer where she was typing about her day. I knew at this moment she was ready to learn to keep her own blog, the one I had hoped the students would have started at the beginning of the year. So, just yesterday, we worked on setting up a blog for her using edublogs and this morning she came in ready to write or you might say type.

When Rachel walked in this morning, she had one thing on her mind. I had assigned a tessallation project using StoMo and iMovie on the iPad and she had hers complete. She couldn't wait to show me! When she played her video I was amazed! So much, that I shared her video at lunch with the other teachers and sent it to my principal who was home sick today. As soon as we came in from lunch and recess today, Rachel was on her blog writing, not because I asked her to, but because she wanted to. What was she writing about? Her project, what else would she write about today?

When her blog was complete, she was excited for me to read it, and had hopes the world would see it, too! After receiving special permission from her mother to have her video project online, Rachel was so excited that she jumped and yelled "I AM SO FAMOUS!" You see Rachel is proud of her work, and like many other children in the 21st century she wants a chance to share it with the world and for the world to watch, read, and listen.

So, tonight I ask that if you are reading my blog, go visit Rachel's blog and post a positive comment and make Rachel the FAMOUS person she already is! Because this child is just one of many children who need a classroom that engages them using 21st century methods.

(Please note, my student uses a pseudonym to help protect her identity and all comments on her blog are monitored by me. All negative comments will be removed.)