Moving to a discussion of how attitudes and habits apply to digital literacies, she uses Twitter as a tool that can be a "representation of what the Web seeks to be," namely a source of personal, customized, community-filtered data -- but only to the person who knows how to use it and approaches it with the right mindset.
Social media in education, according to Maiers, is "a mindset challenge, not a skill set challenge."
Students enter a world cut off from their own where they are asked to turn off all electronic devices. They can feel trapped
At all levels, businesses need employees that are more creative, more technical, and more connected than ever. This means that technical literacy is no longer “nice to have,” but a requirement for success.
At the same time, a recent study found that 14% of employers in the U.S. reported having difficulty finding employees to fill high-skill positions, including jobs like technicians, sales people, office support, and skilled tradespeople.
By placing so much emphasis on testing, the curriculum became centered around those tests. Since students’ day-to-day lives are vastly different from what they see on standardized tests, they have little context for the content they are asked to learn. The result: 21st century skills involving creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication are devalued or absent from classrooms.
immersing students in a specific career provides a stronger context for learning. Students can connect the rationale for learning new content to a career skill or objective. Instead of being viewed as a distraction, technology becomes a critical tool to give students 21st Century skills in creativity, critical thinking, and communications.