The Partnership for 21st Century Skills – Our Mission
There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces.
To successfully face rigorous higher education coursework, career challenges and a globally competitive workforce, U.S. schools must align classroom environments with real world environments by infusing 21st century skills.
This skills set includes:
- Information and communication skills (information and media literacy skills; communication skills)
- Thinking and problem-solving (critical thinking and systems thinking; problem identification, formulation and solution; creativity and intellectual curiosity)
- Interpersonal and self-direction skills (interpersonal and collaborative skills; self-direction; accountability and adaptability; social responsibility)
- Global awareness
- Financial, economic and business literacy, and developing entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options
- Civic literacy
Source: The Partnership for 21st Century Skills – Our Mission
No real time to write about this, but I wanted to note the link for a future post.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills – Home
No real time to write about this now, but wanted to note the link and idea for a future post.
Just a quick note to say Hello to 2007! I have a number of personal and professional plans this year… How about you?
2006 saw abuse rise in the Internet safety and security area as well as the launch of quite a few new web 2.0 technologies. one to which you can now see on my blog. Mashups are on the rise as the new generation of collaborative technologies and new generation technology users begin to embrace them. you can click on the world map to the right to see where visitors to my blog are located.
More to come.
I received the following email from someone just passing by my blog and I thought I’d share my response here as well.
I ran across your blog, where you wrote about installing Vista on your Gateway M275 tablet. I also own an M725 and am curious about how it worked out. You said that you got it installed and that it worked well. Were you able to get the Aero features to work? Did you have any trouble with features that require drivers (LCD Panel Multi-function Buttons, Intel Pro wireless, Card Reader, etc.)?
-Michael Fritsch
Michael,
Hope all is well with you! thanks for the email and perusing my blog… good that at least someone out there might be viewing it… although I have been slammed and not able to write even on the topics I set aside to write about…
Anyway, the 275. Great tablet! I am still struggling fully committing to my Gateway M285 (next version) and parting with the 275 for a faculty member to test… Ahhh well…
ok couple thing you need to know. I have the 1.7mhz version of the M275 with 1gb of RAM (I upgraded with a 512mb chip when I initially got the M275). The RAM is key here for Vista. Less than a gig and Vista will not be happy. I am still running Vista RC2 on it, as I only have a single license currently for the Vista RTM and I put it on the M285. I have been using Vista on the M275 since Beta 1 with only minor issues (that the RTM might take care of). All of the upgrades went in well regardless of whether I completed it as an upgrade or a clean install. As an FYI, when I was sticking with a version for a while, I would boot from the DVD and do a complete clean install formatting the drive in the process.
I’ll start with the issues:
- Panel Buttons do not function other than the brightness. (Again might be cleared up with RTM)
- Rotate Screen actually brings the tablet to the login screen like you are logging off…
- Panel Mic while picking up sound is VERY FAINT! to the point you can’t hear recorded sound. if you plug in a headset that works just fine however.
- Aero – Oh so close… The graphics performance is too low for full Aero panes. It runs in Vista Basic – While this does do transparency for the Sidebar, the windows are not the full translucency of Aero overall. Additionally, applications minimized in the taskbar only display the XP like topic message and not a miniature live window of Aero. (By the way this is really cool! the M285 has scores of 2.0 for Aero and 2.4 for 3D and apparently that is high enough for the true Aero interface. Frankly you don’t lose much not having Aero other than a bit of eye candy. The screen is still bright (brighter than the M285) and crisp.
Pro’s
- Install was flawless, and quick! 20-30 Minutes with it patching from the Internet to get the latest updates.
- Overall performance is AWESOME! Vista is much more lively and responsive than XP, and more capable when running multiple apps. I typically have 10-20 apps/windows open (don’t know how that happens, but it does… I find myself closing all sorts of things when I am trying to drill down to my desktop.
- Speaking of the above. There are two buttons in the task bar that allow for immediate drop to the desktop or to visually tile app open apps like below and then you just click on the one you want.
- Wireless capabilities. Much easier and MORE secure wireless connection.
- Card reader and USB’s work flawlessly.
- Pen recognition is flawless in tracking and recognition! With XP Tablet, I spoke with a number of MS reps who stated that they had clients who insisted that the tablet “learned” their writing… they said nope… but in Vista it DOES! Both through training if you are somewhat bored (I have been) and go through the training, but there is also a setting you can check where it will learn through use. the M275 got so good that I felt I could almost write with my feet
- Sleep mode and wake could not be easier. It even appears to hold a lower power state when sleeping (I rarely shut down when I can avoid it.) and I get more battery life.
Ok, I could go on, but I thing I would dive off into more about Vista than on how the M275 works on Vista. Overall, If you need to upgrade the memory do it, (it will only help overall – even staying with XP) then take the plunge I do not think that you will be disappointed. the file system in Vista takes a bit tot get used to initially, but with the quick search feature, you might find that you are clicking start>all programs> less and just hitting start and typing the first few letters and letting Vista’s new search features take care of finding things…
Alright. I hope that I am not too tired to blog on this later, but I have to tell you about this. Yesterday, I was stuck eating lunch without my typical book or eweek mag to bide my time, so I was playing with the M285 Vista RTM, and thought about Voice Recognition… I thought what the heck I wonder what it will do. I was amazed. It immediately started a beautiful tutorial, that I decided to go through… it started out with the typical click to move on… then it said… your turn! I walked through the remainder of the 10 minute tutorial via voice through the built-in Mic in the panel. Native within Vista is a full feature voice recog system that will control ALL of the functions of the PC via voice command! In addition to the standard voice recog in a doc or app… AMAZING! You talk, and it just well does… no training no getting used to things… I was floored. You can train it to be more accurate but out of the box it was WAY COOL!
Well as you can see I am a big fan of both vista and the M275 and getting there with the M285 (trust me if the 285 didn’t have about 12 hours of battery life and a dual core proc, you couldn’t tear a Vista enable M275 away from me.
Hope this helps a bit, and if you have other questions, comments, or thoughts feel free to drop me a line.
More on Voice Command in a future post.
Ok, we are in day two of the conference and things are starting off well. I am currently in Jon Orech’s presentation on “High-tech Lit Circles using wikis.” Jon is an English teacher and curricular technology specialist at Downers grove South high school. Right now he is providing a well structured, interactive, and poignant presentation.
This is what the entire conference should be like. He is presenting technology through an easy going manner and presenting from a solution standpoint not just doing tech talk. Amazing! This is a true view into integrating technology into the curriculum.
Jon is presenting on how he is using wikis and discussion boards in real class situations. Realizing that not all districts have (or can afford Blackboard) which CSD99 utilizes, he is minimizing the actual workings of Blackboard, yet highlighting the key ideas that cross all wiki and discussion board tools.
Finally, he is presenting his thoughts, cautions, and suggestions on analyzing how to assess use of the web 2.0 tools. Way to go Jon! Oops… Jon just made a comment which with I don’t completely agree.
“I only assign one of these a year.”
- Jon Orech
While I love the focus and how Jon is using wiki technology to enhance his students ability to write and work collaboratively WITH accountability, this really needs to be done more that only once per year. When our students go out into the working world, they will need these collaborative team skills as they will be using them almost daily… Kudos to a great presentation Jon, but I hope you will find a way it incorporate more assignments like these throughout the year.
After attending a number of sessions I am quite disappointed with the conference the year. through it is only day one and over all I will wait is pass judgment as a whole.
However, one comment I do feel I can make is my disappointment in the presenters I have seen. for a Technology based conference, it appeared that the presenters not only did not prepare for their sessions, but also were very uncomfortable with the technology they were using.
The current session I am in is frustrating at best and frankly is annoying most of the time. We are 20 minutes in the session and just getting into the actual topic and demonstration. Unfortunately, the demonstration was rudimentary at best. Even to a neophyte this session is way to basic. More of the focus was on the limitations of the product/system than on usefulness and potential for the application and this is from the presenter herself!
Even the few examples she provided were haltingly and poorly presented.
From a technology standpoint, 3 of the 4 had from minor to major in getting even the most basic of PC functions to work. Truly Sad.
Oh! What will the future bring?! Hopefully, better presentations…
Welcome to the 2007 Illinois Education Technology Conference. I have been looking forward is this conference since last year. Aside from spending two lovely days in Springfield, IL this conference has provided a wealth of information, thoughts, insight, and motivation for the future. I am anticipating that this year’s Conference will not at me down!
One interesting note so far is that of the sessions I have looked at so far my focus has changed. In the past I have looked is discover new technologies to bring back or lessons / methodology for technology we use… this year I find I am looking forward to sessions on integrating technology more fully into the curriculum as well as on professional development along those lines for teachers.
One great quote I heard at my first session was:
“Sometimes, we fall into the trap of thinking of ourselves as a math teacher or as a reading teacher.”
- Robert Klemp Jr
I will blog more on this thought, but what a great initiator of conversation. What Bob was driving at was we are teachers who teach skills and we use content as a vehicle to teach these skills and we can’t forget that.
Oh! What will the future bring?!
The no joy of new technology…
As part of a replacement for some stolen equipment, I just received two new Gateway M485-E Convertible Notebook pc’s. At first glance I was very excited! Core 2 Duo processor, 1gb of ram, 8 hr 1/2 cell main battery with thepossibility of adding a modular 8 cellfor a total of approximately 12-16 hours of battery, Tablet XP technology. Nice stuff. I was hoping to take one as a replacement for my Two year old M275 Gateway Tablet The earlier version. My M275 only has a 3 hour battery life.
Overall, my first impression of the M285 was positive. Clean lines, nice bright active matrix Screen, great horsepower. The 14″ widescreen was nice. The weight was the same as my old tablet, but felt less cumbersome.
As soon as I took out the stylus my joy began to diminish. The stylus Gateway is now using is active sensing technology. Meaning that only the Gateway stylus will be reconignized by the M285. you might think that this is not a by deal until you lose one… Additionally, the styles and pointer never seem to align well regardless of how often I calibrate. This I found to be VERY annoying. However, I quickly put that issue aside as I began to use this machine. The speed and capabilities are amazing. My old m275 is peppy at 1.7GHz,but the Core 2 Duo running at 1.66GHz easily out paces it. I like to run a number of applications at one time. Typically, 5-7 or 8 and that is not including the background apps I have loaded in my tray like, skype, snag it, live care, pen flicks, etc. Not to mention the 4 to 5 IE windows (tabs) that I may have open if I am researching something on the internet. So, the added power would be welcome.
As you might be able to imagine I am pretty hard on systems. Additionally, I really love tablet technology! Most of what I do is pen based. Maybe Tablet technology will bring back handwriting skills?!
One other aspect I began to find distressing was that the M285-E didn’t want to accept Vista RC 2. It’s not that it is not capable… None of the RC2 DVD’s that I burned would be accepted as readable by the M285-E’s DVD drive… this was tragic to me. I have been using Vista since early in the beta and have grown to really like this OS. I was able to eventually load Vista RC1, however, then the M285-E forgot that it was a tablet… This was really annoying. Especially when RC1 would not Connect to windows Update to potentially download the missing tablet drivers…
So, Overall within one day, I re-imaged the M285-E four times to get it finally back to factory specs, and created (wasted) six DVD’s working to get a compatible DVD for RC2 and in the end I am back right where I started with an XP Pro based Tablet pc with a flawed stylus. I am going to wait until the Corporate Rtm version of Vista Releases next week to try again to make the M285-E a useful technology tool to replace my M275.
An interesting siderite… my M275 had no problems upgrading to any version of Vista and works almost flawlessly with RC 2. I only have a small problem with the internal mic. other than that this has been a great little Tablet! And it is still going!
October 30th, 2006 by digitalcents in Web 2.0 · No Comments
This resource has just been officially released by google. Overall from a web 2.0 view… what a tremendous resource! Even in a district that has a strong economic basis what a tremendous opportunity for students to ensure their hard work can be compatible with what ever office package their school uses.
!f the possibility to create a document online and be able for save or download in multiple formats is not powerful enough… Google adds the capability for true collaboration. Bravo Google!
My only note on a down side is the clunky undocumented way to re-download a document. But bless is a minor inconvience.
Link to Welcome to Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Microsoft often gets a bad rap, occasionally deserved, often irrational, but sometimes on target. However, today I wanted to taken second to sing praises for Microsoft’s suite of “live” products. specifically, Live Writer (Beta) – which I am writing this blog post on – but more specifically “Live local.”
First, I need to provide some background. I am using a Gateway M275 Tablet pc, (most often using the stylus for everything,) which I have recently loaded Vista RC2 on, so I am also using IE7 as my default browser. In addition, I installed the Windows Live Toolbar and a number of plugins like del.icio.us, flickr, and Inkblog.
Ok, back to the reason for my praise. Today I was going to a shoe store I had only been to once over a year ago. On my way there, I guessed (incorrectly) at a direction and was a couple of miles off from my desired destination…
“Ok, I was not quite completely lost, but the road I was on would NOT have connected me with the road I needed, like I thought it would.”
Remembering I had a business card in my wallet from the store, I dug if out to get the address…
“So, at this point you might imagine I could have simply called the store for directions… Well, yes I could have, but being a male with a predisposition for technology I thought if I Could only find a “hotspot” I could get directions for myself!”
Hotspot located in short order, I Launched IE7 and clicked on the “Live Local” map icon. While live local was not able to find my location by IP address, (most Likely due to how I set up the hotspot in Vista) I was able to enter the address of the shoe store, which live local found instantly.
From there, I zoomed out on the map and found a ballpark location of where I was. At this point you are probably saying…
“ok, but you still don’t have directions.” you’re right, and I was feeling that way too…
But, while I have not played with Live Local maps too much before this, I took a shot and right-clicked with the pen and a drop down menu gave me a choice I was hoping for “Drive from…” Amazing! I clicked on “Drive from…” and then right-clicked on the destination point Live Local had already found and selected “Drive to…” and then clicked “Get Directions” and viola my directions complete with map and turn by turn… Amazing!
While this post has taken about 15 minutes to write, the whole hunt for directions to less than 2 minutes. What a tremendous (and accurate) resource. If you are a fan of Google Earth, give Live Local a shot. I believe it will impress you. I did me and without a 100mb install!
Oh! What WILL the future bring?!
