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?

21st Century Skills and English Map

On November 24th, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills released the 21st Century Skills and English Map which is:

a new framework that provides educators with teacher-created models of how 21st century skills can be infused into English classes.

How wonderful is that! A map that will help English teachers infuse 21st century skills into their classroom. And, better yet, it's using a teacher-created model! Wonderful!

They also have a map for Social Studies as well as many other publications. I encourage you to visit their publication listing and choose one to read/review. If you find something outstanding, post that information as a reply to this post and share with everyone else!

Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes

Many (notice I said many - not all) teachers have a fear/belief that technology could quite possible make their job obsolete. Could this happen? Doubtful! I am here to say, though, that if educators don't get on board with the changing face of education, they may become obsolete. They will not, though, be replaced by technology, but by educators who get on board with bring education into the 21st Century.

Teachers need to change from being the giver of knowledge (because with the Internet, knowledge about anything can be found), but the facilitator of learning. I've mentioned this in previous posts; however, today's topic of the importance of the Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes brings this point home.

Learning to read, write, and understand math, science, and history is still at the very heart of our students' education needs; however, the way our students learn these things is changing...and changing at a very rapid pace. Teachers are still a very important key in this learning process, but it is very necessary to help facilitate the learning as opposed to giving the knowledge and just expecting them to learn. That doesn't cut it anymore!

The additional component to this area of 21st century skills framework are the 21st Century Themes. According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills:

...schools must move beyond a focus on basic competency in core subjects to promoting understanding of academic content at much higher levels by weaving 21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects.

Those 21st century interdisciplinary themes include:

• Global awareness
• Financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy
• Civic literacy
• Health literacy

These items may be taught in our school systems of today; however, as is pointed out in the quote from Partnership for 21st Century Skills they believe these themes should be woven into the core subjects. That means that the core subjects are taught using projects and ideas that promote the interdisciplinary themes.

For most, that is a shift from what is currently happening in the classroom. No longer is lecture followed by paper/pencil test enough. Really - it should never have been enough, but that has been the method adopted by most educators for many years now. No longer can a teacher sit back and watch the students learn. The teacher should be an active participant in guiding the students' learning - the keyword there being active. Giving a worksheet to the students while reading the newspaper at your desk will no longer cut it. That is a rather extreme example. Do I believe this is happening in most classrooms? No, but I know it does happen to some degree. There are still teachers who think that the most effective way to teach is to hand them a worksheet where they have to do 20/30 (or more in some cases) problems practicing the same concept. It doesn't work! Do you go home and do a worksheet to learn to bake a cake? NO! Why would we think our students learn this way?

Yes - I am quite passionate about this. Engaging our students in their learning is so important and the change needs to happen now. We can no longer sit back and see if this will work. It works! Engage your students. We'll all be better for it.

What are 21st Century Skills?

I felt it important, if this blog is to be used to move teachers toward 21st century teaching, that I write to the idea of 21st century skills. What does this mean? What skills does this include? What can I do to ensure I am teaching these skills?

I plan to address some of these questions in the next few blogs. I know everyone is gearing back up for school (if you haven't already started) so I hope you will begin thinking about 21st century skills when writing lesson plans and teaching your students. Addressing these skills needs to be a natural part of your teaching.

The best place to start for information on the 21st century skills (or literacy) is with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Their mission statement:

Serve as a catalyst to position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders

Their members include many businesses and education entities. There are actually nine states (unfortunatley, Texas - where I am from - is not one of them) that have become involved and made it a state-wide initiative. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has great resources and publications that you may find useful in professional development as well as using at your school to further the idea of 21st Century Skills and being a 21st Century Teacher.

My next post will include information about the framework and exactly what the 21st Century Skills include.

Good luck with the beginning of school and remember...our kids deserve an education that will prepare them for their future!