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7 essential skills for the 21st Century and how to prepare our students. 

"Digital Citizenship is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare students/technology users for a society full of technology. Too often we are seeing students as well as adults misusing and abusing technology but not sure what to do. The issue is more than what the users do not know but what is considered appropriate technology usage. "

Digital Citizenship is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare students/technology users for a society full of technology. Digital citizenship is the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use.  Too often we are seeing students as well as adults misusing and abusing technology but not sure what to do. The issue is more than what the users do not know but what is considered appropriate technology usage. 

"Deliberate practice is essential for improving a wide range of skills important for everyday life, from tying shoelaces to reading and writing. Yet despite its importance for developing basic skills, academic success, and expertise, we know little about the development of deliberate practice. A new study from Australia found that children spontaneously practice skills to prepare for the future starting at the age of 6. The study, from researchers at the University of Queensland, is published in the journal Child Development."

"Modern education is tough on everyone involved. Teachers spend hours preparing lessons and marking work, whilst students find themselves studying multiple subjects at once and experiencing a high level of pressure throughout their school career."

"The Finnish group used a methodology called "Booksprint" which was developed to produce manuals for Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS). The method has already been used to produce over 40 FLOSS manuals. Booksprints involve a large number of individuals with various relevant backgrounds working collaboratively, either remotely or locally, to produce published books, usually within 2-5 days. The method requires intensive pre-planning culminating in an "unconference" at which the text is written, edited and prepared for publication. Participants make extensive use of open source methodologies and tools to facilitate sharing, versioning, and tracking, ex. using GitHub."

"The New Learning Institute delivers engaging, personalized, project-based digital media programs to young people and educators. We work in classrooms, after-school centers, museums, and cultural institutions, or wherever learning takes place. Using the latest mobile technologies and digital media practices and tools, we help young people explore their interests, direct their own learning, and better prepare themselves for living and working in the 21st century."

New report from Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University, September 2012, by Anthony P. Carnevale, Tamara Jayasundera, Andrew R. Hanson - Daniela Fairchild of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes in The Education Gadfly Weekly: "At 31 percent, the United States currently ranks second among OECD nations-behind Norway-for the percentage of its workforce with a four-year college education. That's the good news. The bad news is that we rank sixteenth for the percentage of our workforce with a sub-baccalaureate education (think: postsecondary and industry-based certificates, associate's degrees). Yet a swath of jobs in America calls for just that sort of preparation, which often begins in high school. Dubbed "middle jobs" in this report by the Center on Education and the Workforce, these employment opportunities pay at least $35,000 a year and are divided among white- and blue-collar work. Yet they are largely ignored in our era of "college for all." In two parts, this report delineates five major categories of career and technical education (CTE), then lists specific occupations that require this type of education. It's full of facts and figures and an excellent resource for those looking to expand rigorous CTE in the U.S. Most importantly, it presents this imperative: Collect data on students who emerge from these programs. By tracking their job placements and wage earnings, we can begin to rate CTE programs, shutter those that are ineffective, and scale up those that are successful. If CTE is ever to gain traction in the U.S.-and shed the stigma of being low-level voc-tech education for kids who can't quite make it academically-this will be a necessary first step."

Thomas Friedman's NY Times article - interview w/ Tony Wagner on need to be prepare students to be innovation ready.

Thinglink image annotation in the classroom, focusing on world language applications.

Last year, research firm Gartner heralded the bring-your-own-device, or BYOD, phenomenon as the "most radical shift in enterprise client computing since the introduction of the PC." Such headlines often smack of hyperbole but so far, BYOD has lived up to expectations. If we are preparing students for the world of work, BYOD has to be part of that. Companies are experiencing the same challenges that schools are.

Scribble is a great tool for preparing web-based readings for engaging students more attentively in their inquiry. Great tool to support close reading and CCSS. Scrible is a free online tool for saving, organizing, annotating, and sharing websites for online research projects and web quests. It saves a copy of each page you annotate in your personal Scrible library, so that even if the original web pages you've made notes on go down, your saved pages and your notes still exist. You can post your work on Facebook or Twitter, and you can also share your Scrible pages with short links that you generate with the click of a button. Check it out for yourself at www.scrible.com.

Are we over producing or are we preparing a workforce for the future when the need for teachers increases?

National Public Radio / All Things Considered transcript and audio for a story on teacher certification requirements and a proposal by AFT for a teacher "bar exam." "The system for preparing and licensing teachers in the U.S. is in such disarray that the American Federation of Teachers is proposing a "bar exam" similar to the one lawyers have to pass before they can practice."

National Public Radio / All Things Considered transcript and audio for a story on teacher certification requirements and a proposal by AFT for a teacher "bar exam."