Creating a 21st century
education system that prepares students, workers and citizens to
triumph in the global skills race is the central economic
competitiveness issue currently facing the United States, according to
a new report released by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
6More
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Report Identifies Inherent Link Between a 21s... - 0 views
-
Sponsored by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Ford Motor Company Fund, KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the National Education Association, the report notes that the country’s economic output has changed dramatically over the past 30 years and there is no sign this trend will stop.
-
As the world continues to shift from an industrial economy to a service economy driven by information, knowledge and innovation, cultivating 21st century skills is vital to economic success.
- ...3 more annotations...
-
While the global economy has been changing, the United States has focused primarily on closing domestic achievement gaps and largely ignored the growing necessity of graduating students capable of filling emerging job sectors.
-
Abroad, developed and competing nations have focused on imparting a different set of skills – 21st century skills – to their graduates because these skills increasingly power the wealth of nations. Furthermore, businesses now require workers who can handle more responsibility and contribute more to productivity and innovation.
-
“Through my work with the business community, it has become apparent that there isn’t a lack of employees that are technically proficient but a lack of employees that can adequately communicate and collaborate, innovate and think critically,” said Ken Kay, president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. “At this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, legislators and policymakers must focus on the outcomes we know produce graduates capable of competing in the 21st century and forging a viable economic future.”
6More
Speak Up Press Release - 0 views
-
The 2007 online survey collected authentic, unfiltered views and ideas from over 367,000 education stakeholders representing schools in all 50 states, bringing the total of survey participants to over 1.2 million over the past 5 years.
-
This disconnect is evident in the fact that 66% of school administrators, 47% of teachers, and 43% of parents say "local schools are doing a good job preparing students for the jobs and careers of the future," but over 40% of middle and high school students stated that teachers limit their use of technology in schools. Forty-five percent of middle and high school students indicated that tools meant to protect them, such as firewalls and filters are inhibiting their learning.
-
"It is in our nation's best interest that we support and facilitate student usage of technology for learning."
- ...2 more annotations...
-
46% said they would like to receive specific professional development on how to effectively integrate gaming technologies into curriculum.
-
With the release of Speak Up 2007 results, Evans called upon education leaders at all levels to put aside their own "digital immigrant" paradigms and to listen to students who are not only on the cutting edge of technology innovation but whose future is dependent upon our ability to deliver upon the promise of a world quality, global 21st century education.
3More
All Passage Middle School classes will blog this year -- dailypress.com - 0 views
-
Passage teachers have been encouraged to create an account on Twitter, an online social networking site that limits each posting to 140 characters. Teachers will attend a morning screening of the movie "Julie & Julia" and "live blog" the experience with their Twitter accounts. Rogers chose the movie, based on the experiences of two real people, because one character uses a blog as an education and communication tool.
13More
Education Week: Filtering Fixes - 0 views
-
Instead of blocking the many exit ramps and side routes on the information superhighway, they have decided that educating students and teachers on how to navigate the Internet’s vast resources responsibly, safely, and productively—and setting clear rules and expectations for doing so—is the best way to head off online collisions.
-
“We are known in our district for technology, so I don’t see how you can teach kids 21st-century values if you’re not teaching them digital citizenship and appropriate ways of sharing and using everything that’s available on the Web,” said Shawn Nutting, the technology director for the Trussville district. “How can you, in 2009, not use the Internet for everything? It blows me away that all these schools block things out” that are valuable.
-
While schools are required by federal and state laws to block pornography and other content that poses a danger to minors, Internet-filtering software often prevents students from accessing information on legitimate topics that tend to get caught in the censoring process: think breast cancer, sexuality, or even innocuous keywords that sound like blocked terms. One teacher who commented on one of Mr. Fryer’s blog posts, for example, complained that a search for biographical information on a person named Thacker was caught by his school’s Internet filter because the prohibited term “hacker” is included within the spelling of the word.
- ...9 more annotations...
-
The K-2 school provides e-mail addresses to each of its 880 students and maintains accounts on the Facebook and Twitter networking sites. Children can also interact with peers in other schools and across the country through protected wiki spaces and blogs the school has set up.
-
“Rather than saying this is a scary tool and something bad could happen, instead we believe it’s an incredible tool that connects you with the entire world out there. ... [L]et’s show you the best way to use it.”
-
As Trussville students move through the grades and encounter more-complex educational content and expectations, their Internet access is incrementally expanded.
-
In 2001, the Children’s Internet Protection Act instituted new requirements for schools to establish policies and safeguards for Internet use as a condition of receiving federal E-rate funding. Many districts have responded by restricting any potentially troublesome sites. But many educators and media specialists complain that the filters are set too broadly and cannot discriminate between good and bad content. Drawing the line between what material is acceptable and what’s not is a local decision that has to take into account each district’s comfort level with using Internet content
-
The American Civil Liberties Union sued Tennesee’s Knox County and Nashville school districts on behalf of several students and a school librarian for blocking Internet sites related to gay and lesbian issues. While the districts’ filtering software prohibited students from accessing sites that provided information and resources on the subject, it did not block sites run by organizations that promoted the controversial view that homosexuals can be “rehabilitated” and become heterosexuals. Last month, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit after school officials agreed to unblock the sites.
-
Students are using personal technology tools more readily to study subject matter, collaborate with classmates, and complete assignments than they were several years ago, but they are generally asked to “power down” at school and abandon the electronic resources they rely on for learning outside of class, the survey found. Administrators generally cite safety issues and concerns that students will misuse such tools to dawdle, cheat, or view inappropriate content in school as reasons for not offering more open online access to students. ("Students See Schools Inhibiting Their Use of New Technologies,", April 1, 2009.)
-
A report commissioned by the NSBA found that social networking can be beneficial to students, and urged school board members to “find ways to harness the educational value” of so-called Web 2.0 tools, such as setting up chat rooms or online journals that allow students to collaborate on their classwork. The 2007 report also told school boards to re-evaluate policies that ban or tightly restrict the use of the Internet or social-networking sites.
-
Federal Requirements for Schools on Internet Safety The Children’s Internet Protection Act, or CIPA, is a federal law intended to block access to offensive Web content on school and library computers. Under CIPA, schools and libraries that receive funding through the federal E-rate program for Internet access must: • Have an Internet-safety policy and technology-protection measures in place. The policy must include measures to block or filter Internet access to obscene photos, child pornography, and other images that can be harmful to minors; • Educate minors about appropriate and inappropriate online behavior, including activities like cyberbullying and social networking; • Adopt and enforce a policy to monitor online activities of minors; and • Adopt and implement policies related to Internet use by minors that address access to inappropriate online materials, student safety and privacy issues, and the hacking of unauthorized sites. Source: Federal Communications Commission
-
“We believe that you can’t have goals about kids’ collaborating globally and then block their ability to do that,” said Becky Fisher, the Virginia district’s technology coordinator.
18More
Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:What Would Socrates Say? - 0 views
-
The noted philosopher once said, "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." My fear is that instead of knowing nothing except the fact of our own ignorance, we will know everything except the fact of our own ignorance. Google has given us the world at our fingertips, but speed and ubiquity are not the same as actually knowing something.
-
Socrates believed that we learn best by asking essential questions and testing tentative answers against reason and fact in a continual and virtuous circle of honest debate. We need to approach the contemporary knowledge explosion and the technologies propelling this new enlightenment in just that manner. Otherwise, the great knowledge and communication tsunami of the 21st century may drown us in a sea of trivia instead of lifting us up on a rising tide of possibility and promise.
-
A child born today could live into the 22nd century. It's difficult to imagine all that could transpire between now and then. One thing does seem apparent: Technical fixes to our outdated educational system are likely to be inadequate. We need to adapt to a rapidly changing world.
- ...13 more annotations...
-
Every day we are exposed to huge amounts of information, disinformation, and just plain nonsense. The ability to distinguish fact from factoid, reality from fiction, and truth from lies is not a "nice to have" but a "must have" in a world flooded with so much propaganda and spin.
-
For example, for many years, the dominant U.S. culture described the settling of the American West as a natural extension of manifest destiny, in which people of European descent were "destined" to occupy the lands of the indigenous people. This idea was, and for some still is, one of our most enduring and dangerous collective fabrications because it glosses over human rights and skirts the issue of responsibility. Without critical reflection, we will continually fall victim to such notions.
-
A second element of the 21st century mind that we must cultivate is the willingness to abandon supernatural explanations for naturally occurring events.
-
The third element of the 21st century mind must be the recognition and acceptance of our shared evolutionary collective intelligence.
-
To solve the 21st century's challenges, we will need an education system that doesn't focus on memorization, but rather on promoting those metacognitive skills that enable us to monitor our own learning and make changes in our approach if we perceive that our learning is not going well.
-
Metacognition is a fancy word for a higher-order learning process that most of us use every day to solve thousands of problems and challenges.
-
We are at the threshold of a worldwide revolution in learning. Just as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the wall of conventional schooling is collapsing before our eyes. A new electronic learning environment is replacing the linear, text-bound culture of conventional schools. This will be the proving ground of the 21st century mind.
-
We will cease to think of technology as something that has its own identity, but rather as an extension of our minds, in much the same way that books extend our minds without a lot of fanfare. According to Huff and Saxberg, immersive technologies—such as multitouch displays; telepresence (an immersive meeting experience that offers high video and audio clarity); 3-D environments; collaborative filtering (which can produce recommendations by comparing the similarity between your preferences and those of other people); natural language processing; intelligent software; and simulations—will transform teaching and learning by 2025.
-
So imagine that a group of teachers and middle school students decides to tackle the question, What is justice? Young adolescents' discovery of injustice in the world is a crucial moment in their development. If adults offer only self-serving answers to this question, students can become cynical or despairing. But if adults treat the problem of injustice truthfully and openly, hope can emerge and grow strong over time. As part of their discussion, let's say that the teachers and students have cocreated a middle school earth science curriculum titled Water for the World. This curriculum would be a blend of classroom, community, and online activities. Several nongovernmental organizations—such as Waterkeeper, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Water for People—might support the curriculum, which would meet national and state standards and include lessons, activities, games, quizzes, student-created portfolios, and learning benchmarks.
-
The goal of the curriculum would be to enable students from around the world to work together to address the water crisis in a concrete way. Students might help bore a freshwater well, propose a low-cost way of preventing groundwater pollution, or develop a local water treatment technique. Students and teachers would collaborate by talking with one another through Skype and posting research findings using collaborative filtering. Students would create simulations and games and use multitouch displays to demonstrate step-by-step how their projects would proceed. A student-created Web site would include a blog; a virtual reference room; a teachers' corner; a virtual living room where learners communicate with one another in all languages through natural language processing; and 3-D images of wells being bored in Africa, Mexico, and Texas. In a classroom like this, something educationally revolutionary would happen: Students and adults would connect in a global, purposeful conversation that would make the world a better place. We would pry the Socratic dialogue from the hands of the past and lift it into the future to serve the hopes and dreams of all students everywhere.
-
There has never been a time in human history when the opportunity to create universally accessible knowledge has been more of a reality. And there has never been a time when education has meant more in terms of human survival and happiness.
-
To start, we must overhaul and redesign the current school system. We face this great transition with both hands tied behind our collective backs if we continue to pour money, time, and effort into an outdated system of education. Mass education belongs in the era of massive armies, massive industrial complexes, and massive attempts at social control. We have lost much talent since the 19th century by enforcing stifling education routines in the name of efficiency. Current high school dropout rates clearly indicate that our standardized testing regime and outdated curriculums are wasting the potential of our youth.
-
If we stop thinking of schools as buildings and start thinking of learning as occurring in many different places, we will free ourselves from the conventional education model that still dominates our thinking.
16More
Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:21st Century Skills: The Challenge... - 1 views
-
What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills.
-
This distinction between "skills that are novel" and "skills that must be taught more intentionally and effectively" ought to lead policymakers to different education reforms than those they are now considering. If these skills were indeed new, then perhaps we would need a radical overhaul of how we think about content and curriculum. But if the issue is, instead, that schools must be more deliberate about teaching critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving to all students, then the remedies are more obvious, although still intensely challenging.
- ...10 more annotations...
-
To complicate the challenge, some of the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters; that ways of knowing information are now much more important than information itself. Such notions contradict what we know about teaching and learning and raise concerns that the 21st century skills movement will end up being a weak intervention for the very students—low-income students and students of color—who most need powerful schools as a matter of social equity.
-
What will it take to ensure that the idea of "21st century skills"—or more precisely, the effort to ensure that all students, rather than just a privileged few, have access to a rich education that intentionally helps them learn these skills—is successful in improving schools? That effort requires three primary components. First, educators and policymakers must ensure that the instructional program is complete and that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills. Second, states, school districts, and schools need to revamp how they think about human capital in education—in particular how teachers are trained. Finally, we need new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and more complex tasks.
-
Why would misunderstanding the relationship of skills and knowledge lead to trouble? If you believe that skills and knowledge are separate, you are likely to draw two incorrect conclusions. First, because content is readily available in many locations but thinking skills reside in the learner's brain, it would seem clear that if we must choose between them, skills are essential, whereas content is merely desirable. Second, if skills are independent of content, we could reasonably conclude that we can develop these skills through the use of any content. For example, if students can learn how to think critically about science in the context of any scientific material, a teacher should select content that will engage students (for instance, the chemistry of candy), even if that content is not central to the field. But all content is not equally important to mathematics, or to science, or to literature. To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.
-
Because of these challenges, devising a 21st century skills curriculum requires more than paying lip service to content knowledge.
-
Advocates of 21st century skills favor student-centered methods—for example, problem-based learning and project-based learning—that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community. These approaches are widely acclaimed and can be found in any pedagogical methods textbook; teachers know about them and believe they're effective. And yet, teachers don't use them. Recent data show that most instructional time is composed of seatwork and whole-class instruction led by the teacher (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2005). Even when class sizes are reduced, teachers do not change their teaching strategies or use these student-centered methods (Shapson, Wright, Eason, & Fitzgerald, 1980). Again, these are not new issues. John Goodlad (1984) reported the same finding in his landmark study published more than 20 years ago.
-
Why don't teachers use the methods that they believe are most effective? Even advocates of student-centered methods acknowledge that these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers. When students collaborate, one expects a certain amount of hubbub in the room, which could devolve into chaos in less-than-expert hands. These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses. Anyone who has watched a highly effective teacher lead a class by simultaneously engaging with content, classroom management, and the ongoing monitoring of student progress knows how intense and demanding this work is. It's a constant juggling act that involves keeping many balls in the air.
-
Most teachers don't need to be persuaded that project-based learning is a good idea—they already believe that. What teachers need is much more robust training and support than they receive today, including specific lesson plans that deal with the high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems of using student-centered methods.
-
Without better curriculum, better teaching, and better tests, the emphasis on "21st century skills" will be a superficial one that will sacrifice long-term gains for the appearance of short-term progress.
-
The debate is not about content versus skills. There is no responsible constituency arguing against ensuring that students learn how to think in school. Rather, the issue is how to meet the challenges of delivering content and skills in a rich way that genuinely improves outcomes for students.
-
practice means that you try to improve by noticing what you are doing wrong and formulating strategies to do better. Practice also requires feedback, usually from someone more skilled than you are.
2More
Rendell tells cabinet to find $500 million more in cuts - 0 views
-
The biggest reduction is $212 million in the Education Department. This could include a $22 million reduction in a program called "Classrooms for the Future,'' which has been supplying computers for high schools across the state. "This is a tough cut for me to make,'' said Mr. Rendell, who created the program three years ago and said educators around the state like it.
4More
Connecticut District Tosses Algebra Textbooks and Goes Online - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
“With all that is expected of teachers and students today, building a mathematics curriculum that has the depth to meet the needs of all classrooms is a very hard thing to do
-
“They’ve sidestepped the math wars because they have a rational curriculum, well-taught, and they get great results, so how can you argue with that?
2More
An invention that could change the internet for ever - News, Gadgets & Tech - The Indep... - 0 views
-
Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.
20More
2009 Horizon Report: The K12 Edition » Technologies to Watch - 0 views
-
As the project got underway, there was considerable interest in seeing the how similarly K-12 and higher education were viewing emerging technology. As it turned out, there is a considerable overlap, but there are also clear distinctions.
-
barriers such as policy constraints on using online tools, the fact that many students do not bring laptops to school (as opposed to many college students, who do), and policies that restrict Internet access in many schools.
- ...8 more annotations...
-
Communication tools are a part of most students’ daily lives outside of school.
-
Collaborative Environments,
-
Over the next year, we anticipate that both groups of technologies will begin to move into the mainstream of teaching practice.
-
Multi-touch interfaces, GPS capability, and the ability to run third-party applications make today’s mobile device an increasingly flexible tool that is readily adapted to a wide range of tasks for social networking, learning, and productivity.
-
Collaborative work, research, social networking, media sharing, virtual computers: all are enabled by applications that live in the cloud.
-
There are a number of technologies that are used to configure and manage the ways in which we view and use the Internet;
-
Smart objects combine a unique identifier with sensors and network access to link physical objects with a wealth of virtual information.
-
Smart objects combine a unique identifier with sensors and network access to link physical objects with a wealth of virtual information.
-
Is this what is used to make Augmented reality objects? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKw_Mp5YkaE
-
3More
Eigth habits of highly effective 21st century teachers - 0 views
-
We expect our students to be life-long learners. Teachers, must continue to absorb experiences and knowledge, as well. We must endeavour to stay current. I wonder how many people are still using their lesson and unit plans from five years ago. To be a teacher, you must learn and adapt as the horizons and landscapes change.
1More
STEM learning boosted with $100 million initiative - 5 views
-
ime Warner Cable has announced a new philanthropic initiative that is being launched in conjunction with a White House plan to improve education and interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). As part of the five-year, $100M initiative, the company is launching Connect a Million Minds (CAMM), a multi-faceted program that seeks to spark kids' interest in STEM education by connecting at least one million children with fun and engaging out-of-school science and math learning experiences. Features include viral videos, digital badges that can be downloaded onto to websites, emails, or Facebook pages and The Connectory Widget, which allows users to place the CAMM Connectory on their website or blog.
3More
The Technology Facade - 11 views
-
"Abstract: This paper reports on the design, development, and application of a Checklist intended to assist educators in recognizing strengths and weaknesses in their technology-based programs at their institutions. The Checklist sampled public and private schools to validate the existence and impact of the Technology Facade. Initial findings indicate that schools have masked the effective use of computers labs and classroom computers behind the auspices of teacher activities, student participation, and parental involvement. The study and suggests possible courses of action to address deficiencies in the use of technology, the construction of the necessary infrastructure, and the design of a viable instructional strategy."
-
This resonates with me because I see it time after time. Even one-to-one districts aren't doing anything with the computers that they weren't already doing without them. The technology is a Facade. Interesting notion
-
The author of this book was my professor at Duquesne University during the time he was authoring it. He, at the time was the head of the Instructional Technology Deptartment. As an assignment, we helped to "proofread" and make suggestions...so excited to see it mentioned here. Larry has been ahead of his time in this field for years. Great read, and highly recommended as it offers a different, yet crucial perspective on things.
22More
More Schools Embrace the iPad as a Learning Tool - NYTimes.com - 1 views
-
teach Kafka in multimedia, history through “Jeopardy”-like games and math with step-by-step animation of complex problems.
-
The iPads cost $750 apiece
-
Educators, for instance, are still divided over whether initiatives to give every student a laptop have made a difference academically.
- ...8 more annotations...
-
“IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning.”
-
$56,250 for the initial 75
-
32-gigabyte, with case and stylus
-
play math games, study world maps and read “Winnie the Pooh.”
-
“I think this could very well be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector,
-
The New York City public schools have ordered more than 2,000 iPads, for $1.3 million
-
More than 200 Chicago public schools applied for 23 district-financed iPad grants totaling $450,000. The Virginia Department of Education is overseeing a $150,000 iPad initiative
-
“If there isn’t an app that does something I need, there will be sooner or later,”
1More
YouTube - Consequences: Assembly for 11 16 year olds - 2 views
www.youtube.com/watch
youtube onlinesafety internet_safety cybersafety safety technology cybersmart cyberbullying
shared by anonymous on 07 Jan 11
- Cached
-
"This is an assembly from CEOPs Thinkuknow education programme that enables young people to recognise what constitutes personal information. The assembly facilitates young peoples understanding that they need to be just as protective of their personal information online, as they are in the real world. It also directs where to go and what to do if young people are worried about any of the issues covered. For more information please visit: www.thinkuknow.co.uk"
1More
YouTube - Jigsaw: Assembly for 8 10 year olds - 1 views
www.youtube.com/watch
internet_safety youtube technology safety cyberbullying cybersmart cybersafety
shared by anonymous on 07 Jan 11
- No Cached
-
This is an assembly from CEOPs Thinkuknow education programme that helps children to understand what constitutes personal information. The assembly enables children to understand that they need to be just as protective of their personal information online, as they are in the real world. It also directs where to go and what to do if children are worried about any of the issues covered. For more information please visit: www.thinkuknow.co.uk