Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century Classroom

McEwen, Beryl C. (2008).Preparing teachers for the 21st century classroom. Delta Pi Epsilon Journal. 50, 1-3.



Beryl C. McEwen is a college professor, who teaches teacher candidates. He blames college educators for not preparing their students to meet the needs of the 21st century.
College educators train teachers, write the standards, serve in the state curriculum committees, and help in designing the assessments. Therefore, they are responsible for the teacher quality which is an essential variable in the whole learning process. So, they are challenged to prepare teachers for a new type of classroom which is completely different than the one in which they were educated. This new era is characterized by e-mail, e-pals, e-tutors, e-books, e-shops, e-commerce, e-subscriptions, e-payments, e-entertainments, e-classified, e-files, e-cards, journals, e-museums, e- zoos, e-paper, e-spaces, e-travel, e-delivery, e-notebooks, e-banking e-libraries, e-photos, e-courses, and e-learning. Hence, teacher educators must prepare their teacher candidates use these types of technologies in order to reach whoever they are going to teach after graduation. Teacher candidates must be ready to use technology as effective educational tools. They should know how to:
· Design and maintain Web sites that support the courses they will teach.
· Use presentation software and other multimedia products.
· Set up series of Power Point slides of teaching notes.
· Do voice over Power Point.
Some benefits of e-learning:
E-learning environments provide links to current literature, such as e-books, e-journals, and e-newspapers.
Lectures can be presented in writing, supported with electronic slides, voice and video clips.
E-learning facilitates group discussions, electronic group meetings, virtual chats, and file sharing. In addition to, enhancing teacher/student interaction, as well as strengthening the social lives of the students.
I am an old generation teacher. I started teaching in 1981. However, I started using the computer only two years ago when I joined the DLI. Fortunately our institute offers a lot technology training classes for its employees. Now I feel confident in using these technology tools and I am experiencing the e-learning at this moment as I am writing this paper for an online class,