Group items tagged

In collaboration with several content area organizations, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills developed a series of ICT Literacy Maps illustrating the intersection between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy and core academic subjects including English, mathematics, science and social studies (civics/government, geography, economics, history). The maps enable educators to gain concrete examples of how ICT Literacy can be integrated into core subjects, while making the teaching and learning of core subjects more relevant to the demands of the 21st century.

Teens who build and frequent social networking sites are learning 21st century skills (tech skills, creativity, diverse viewpoints and communication skills), according to a University of Minnesota study. This page takes you directly to video interviews with the researchers from U of M.

University of Minnesota study uncovers the educational benefits of social networking sites. "What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today," said Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher in the university's College of Education and Human Development and principal investigator of the study.

It's no surprise that Elliot Soloway would be behind this idea, given his passionate interest in Palm handhelds as educational devices for the past decade.

Superintendents & Need for Vision on 21st Century Skills. Video was produced by COSN, the Consortium for School Networking.

Several states have taken the NETS standards one to several steps further in identifying what K-12 education must achieve in terms of facilitating student proficiency in the defined skills. These efforts have, in some cases, led to standards being issued by each state for its own students to meet

This has great resources. I'm very excited to see New Jersey's focus on Career and Life Skills. However, not seeing the same focus in other states has me wishing for national standards.

Visual literacy ...is the ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using both conventional and 21st century media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning.

The Six Principles of e-Teaching: Integrate, Lead with "Hands-On," Build Hard Skills, Involve Students, Connect Students with Real World, Showcase student work. A database of lesson plans is included on this site. LearniT-TeachiT is a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting business, industry, governmental agencies and other organizations to use the power of technology to prepare teachers, students, and learners of all ages to develop 21st century skills that will provide a basis for their ongoing engagement in learning and personal achievement.

Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco-three technology giants that last year vowed to increase their efforts aimed at global education reform-have banded together to develop the next generation of assessments: tests that measure 21st-century skills and provide a global framework for excellence.

ThinkQuest Newswire Announcement: Students from 13 countries took top honors in this year's ThinkQuest International 2008 Competition. The competition is utilized by teachers to engage their students in developing critical skills for life and work in the 21st century.This year's winning teams collaborated in the research, writing and creation of websites on educational topics ranging from mathematics to promoting tolerance and preventing bullying.

ThinkQuest International 2008 included 972 teams from 60 countries and the winning entries included students from Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam. Each team had approximately eight months to complete their final websites. The submissions were then reviewed by an international panel of volunteer judges who selected the winners in each of the three age divisions. The judges also awarded the "Global Perspectives" prize to the team best exemplifying respect for diversity and recognition of global interdependence.

Teachers wishing to foster digital literacy in their classrooms and states wishing to demonstrate it in their students face a common challenge: no comprehensive, established approach exists to guide the teaching, learning, and assessment of specific digital literacy skills. To begin addressing this challenge, we have developed this website, which was part of a two-year project funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies. The site articulates the skills comprising digital literacy with the goal of helping schools and districts implement a new approach to digital literacy teaching.

The prevalence of blogs, wikis, and social-networking web sites has changed the way students learn to write, according to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)-and schools must adapt in turn by developing new modes of writing, designing new curricula to support these models, and creating plans for teaching these curricula.

Environments such as SECOND LIFE can both stimulate and educate, experts agree. Online gaming can help students develop many of the skills they'll be required to use upon leaving school, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity.

If you made a list of sounds you might hear at your local library, the rumbling of explosions and the loud hum of race-car engines probably wouldn't rank high on it. But in a darkened room at the Quincie Douglas Branch Library, about 20 preteens and teens gather around two screens. It's a mostly soundproof room, to make sure their efforts to rack up points on Nintendo's Wii and PlayStation 2 don't bother the consumers of decidedly more static media. It's a sight that could become more frequent at a library near you.

How media smart are you? How about your children or students? Sometimes called media literacy or information literacy, it's a key 21st Century skill because it provides a framework and method to think critically about the media you consume and create. Being media smart also means you know how to use television, the Internet and other technologies safely, productively and ethically.

Nortel LearniT is an initiative of Nortel Community Relations to prepare teachers, students, and learners of all ages to develop 21st century skills that will provide a basis for their ongoing engagement in learning and personal achievement. Their lesson plans and guides include several lessons on cybersafety, covering topics like spam, hoaxes, cyberbullying, online predation and analyzing web sites to determine validity. The site is translated into multiple languages, including Spanish.

Digital Information Fluency (DIF) is the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically. DIF involves knowing how digital information is different from print information; having the skills to use specialized tools for finding digital information; and developing the dispositions needed in the digital information environment. As teachers and librarians develop these skills and teach them to students, students will become better equipped to achieve their information needs.

Power will soon belong to those who can master a variety of expressive human-machine interactions. Already, various thinkers about the future have proposed a number of candidates for the designation "twenty-first-century literacy." That is, what are the key skills humans must possess in order to be considered literate?

This article offers new research results regarding the academic benefits of students use of social networking sites.

Founded in 1995 as a concerned response to the ever-increasing deluge of messages youth receive from television, radio, film, print media, electronic games, and the Internet, Just Think teaches young people media literacy skills for the 21st century.