The Journey to Becoming 21st Century Educators (Part 1 of 4)

{by Gail Tolbert}

This is my first of 4 blogs about many of my friends and connections who are educators, educators at different stages in their career, educators wanting to become 21st Century Educators. Since I, too, have been a teacher and a principal, they share their stories, their success and their trials with me. As a past educator, I can relate to these stories and have lived similar things. I cherish their journeys and new learning, and hold these educators in high regard. I appreciate and respect that every day they enter their classrooms to educate and teach our children and give 100% of themselves in the process. I want to share some of their stories, their thoughts and lessons and some solutions to their questions with you. Here is the first story about Christy:

Christy is a teacher in training; she is in college studying to be an elementary teacher. Christy grew up with the web, phone, games, Twitter, YouTube, texting and all the other technology. She attends a large, progressive University in the Midwest and is in the midst of her education internships in local schools. She is preparing for real-world teaching. Christy has had one class on educational technology in which she learned about NETS-T and NETS-S. She also learned about Smart Boards and their benefits to teachers and students.

Since Christy is so tech savvy, she has been thinking about how she can communicate with students, peers and parents over the web. She wants to express herself, her style, and her brand using all the tools with which she is comfortable. Anytime she needs information, she goes directly to the web; so she wants the web to be her primary source of disseminating communication and information. She wants to quickly add weekly notes, class newsletters, lunch menus, spelling words, homework assignments, grading rubrics and class schedules. She is concerned about how she will accomplish these tasks easily and in a short period of time. She is wondering if there is a place or tool that will help her and give her access to blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Christy has not yet learned about the leading edge content management tools that will enable her to reach this technology goal.