Thursday, January 14, 2010

Information, Media, and Technology Skills

Information, Media, and Technology Skills is another cog in the Partnership for 21st Century Skills framework. These, in fact, are emerging as the new set of literacies that today's students really need to understand: Information Literacy; Media Literacy; ICT (Information, Communication, and Technology) Literacy.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills address the fact that we live in "technology and media-suffused environment" and schools/teachers who ignore this fact will quickly become extinct (that is my opinion - not the Partnership for 21st Century Skills). Many teachers fear the idea that if technology becomes a part of the educational system, their services may no longer be required and they'll be out a job. Who, then, will teach them about the literacies of the 21st century? Those teachers who continue to ignore these new literacies will be the ones who become extinct, but not because technology will replace them, but because teachers who understand how to use and leverage the technology to engage and teacher students will replace them.

Will you become extinct or will you choose to better understand how the face of education is changing?

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