Welcome to the mini-course "21st Century Skills and Technology in the Social Studies Classroom."  This is a course to help you reflect on your role as a 21st century educator and to expose you to new educational practices and technologies.

The Major Goals of This Course

              By the end of this mini-course students will have:

1.  attained the ability to articulate the meaning behind "21st Century Skills"
2.  realized the relevance of 21st century skills to their curriculum
3.  evaluated lesson plans based on their instruction in/or use of 21st Century Skills
4.  reflected on their current curriculum(s) and their connections to 21st Century Skills 
5.  designed basic lesson plans in their specific content areas that instruct/use 21st Century Skills

          Course Objectives

                1.   Asked to explain the background behind "21st century skills" and to denote their relevance to social studies, participants will generate in writing an explanation that discusses a changing workplace and in a broader sense, a changing world and social studies as a vehicle for teaching those skills.

                2. Given a sample social studies lesson plans, participants will identify the 21st skills present by listing at least 3 skills found in the lesson plan.

                3.  Given the opportunity to freely design a lesson plan, participants will choose to integrate technology and 21st century skills as evidenced by their final written lesson skeleton.

               4.  Asked to create a lesson plan using a specific technology (either Google Earth or Blogging), participants will generate a lesson idea/skeleton in writing that teaches or pratices at least 2 specific 21st century skills in conjunction with social studies content within the context of the given technology.

Course Outline:

   Unit 1: A Course Introduction (Click the link to get started!)

   Unit 2: What are 21st Century Skills?

   Unit 3: Using GoogleEarth to teach and practice 21st Century Skills

   Unit 4: Blogging as part of a 21st Century Classroom

   Unit 5: Reflecting on 21st Century Skills & Technologies - What will your 21st Century Classroom Look Like?