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New report released August 2012 "Business and political leaders are increasingly asking schools to integrate development of skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration into the teaching and learning of academic subjects. Collectively these skills are often referred to as "21st century skills" or "deeper learning." Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century, a new report from the National Research Council, more clearly defines these terms and lays the groundwork for policy and further research in the field."

"Design Thinking is a great skill for students to acquire as part of their education.  But it is one process like the problem-solving model or the scientific method.   As a step-by-step process, it becomes type of box.  Sometimes we need to go beyond that box; step outside of the box.  This post provides an overview of design thinking, the problems with design thinking, and suggestions to hacking the world to go beyond design thinking."

"This leaves us with the question of how to inspire students to look through Internet search results with tenacity, to approach new technologies that may require more problem-solving skills, and to address tasks that are not as instantaneously gratifying as playing video games. It is our role as teachers to help students develop the skills to problem solve independently and collaboratively use 21st-century skills while not relying on technology to do all of the thinking for them."

A fantastic Google Presentation by John Pearce looking at Web 2.0 tools and other cloud based apps to support thinking

A fantastic Google Presentation by John Pearce looking at Web 2.0 tools and other cloud based apps to support thinking

"The SAMR model was developed by as a framework to integrate technology into the curriculum.  I believe it can also serve as a model to establish and assess if and how technology is being used to reinforce an old, often archaic Education 1.0 or being used to promote and facilitate what many are calling 21st century skills, i.e., creativity, innovation, problem-solving, critical thinking; those skills characteristic of Education 3.0.  Many look at SAMR as the stages of technology integration.  I propose that it should be a model for educators to focus on Modification and Redefinition areas of technology integration.  Why should educators spend their time recreating Education 1.0 using technology at the substitution and augmentation levels when there are tools, techniques, and opportunities to modify and redefine technology integration for a richer, more engaging Education 2.0 or 3.0?"

he job of teaching * Join in the discussion reddit this Comments (1) Wendy Berliner Guardian Professional, Monday 3 October 2011 18.30 BST Article history Teacher Daniel Hartley from Chulmleigh Community College, Devon. Photograph: Apex Back in the summer we decided here at GTN HQ that, with our membership rocketing, it was the right time to mark our first six months in operation with a survey to find out what members thought about teaching today. There were questions across a wide spectrum of topics and, at the end, we left a free text box for teachers to add any comments they wanted to share. It was the dying days of the summer holiday - August 25 - when it went out just after lunch. We knew the survey would take ten or 15 minutes to complete so we weren't quite expecting what happened next, but within those first few hours after its release, we realised you had started something big. By 10.30pm that night we'd had several hundred questionnaires back, which in itself was impressive with many teachers perhaps still away on holiday or back but busy preparing for the new term. The most impressive thing of all was the content of those text boxes. There was just so much of it. Some people wrote several hundred words at a time, speaking clearly from the heart and arguing cogently against the things they felt were going wrong in education. A love of teaching and vocational pleasure felt working with children and young people emerged but it was emerging from a fog caused by far less pleasant aspects of the job - disrespect from society and governments, bullying by senior management, other teachers, parents and students, despair at the parenting skills of some homes and despair with government targets and league tables that were funnelling education into an ever thinner tube feeding stuff that improved Sats and exam results rather than nourishing a lifelong love of learning. One former solicitor questioning the sense of the switch into teaching said: " M

Some useful ideas for using screencasting to help studetns learn. "Screencasts can be a great tool for teachers to create presentations for their students to view away from the classroom. But it is even more powerful when it is used as a student creation tool. Screencasts can require higher order thinking skills when the students not only create a presentation, but then have to explain their thinking. "

This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years.

Project Zero is an educational research group at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.

The tweets are getting longer - what do we think about this direction.

An inevitability I guess. There are a good few people who will be delighted that they can shoehorn more information into a tweet, for all the reasons described in the article. Me, not so much. I like the brevity that tweets provide, allowing me to scan the stream and quickly pull out those nuggets that lead on to further information, join in exchanges discussing issues or participate in more extensive debates like #edchat etc. The act of contributing within a constraint of 140 characters forces you to think harder about what you want to say and ensure that your message still retains clarity - surely a higher-order skill? If the character limit is expanded, will tweeters become lazy and allow their tweets to bloat? Maybe I should have answered your question in 140 Tony. ;-)

Good points - and yes should have kept it to 140 characters just for consistency. I tend to agree - I guess the interesting thing is that groups/people can apply but will this single them out and will people proactively avoid them because of it. Think not but interesting to watch.

"I've just been browsing a report recently published by Ofcom titled "Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report." [PDF]. Much of my work in schools and with teachers involves discussions about the sorts of skills and dispositions young people need to be considered 'literate' in an increasingly digital world. The research carried out by Ofcom reveals some useful data to help inform how schools think about a response, including…"

This looks to be a promising app for ome of the students i work with who have difficulties with text but very good auditory and thinking skills.

Great Stats on this site For generations, games have been used to teach concepts, skills, and knowledge. Think Yahtzee, Monopoly, and math; Scrabble and spelling; Mastermind, Qwirkle, and strategy; Clue and problem solving…the list goes on and on. Games are challenging, interesting, and engaging. And with the ever-enhancing technology landscape, games are more immersive than ever. Individual or massive multiplayer online games have grown exponentially in the last few years, and projections only show gaming consumption increasing.

"Current thinking (August 2012) around a web literacies framework by Doug Belshaw, Badges & Skills Lead for the Mozilla Foundation."

"Its well known that giving easy digital content creation tools into the hands of more teachers and students is a great way to encourage focus on higher order thinking skills in the curriculum. For schools with Macs and iPads, the release of Apple's iBooks Author software in January made this even more possible. Attached to this post is 1.0 draft of a 'know-why' guide to using iBooks Author to make digital content thats localised and personalised just for your students. Download and enjoy, plus leave comments if you have questions or feedback. To load, just download directly onto an iPad with iBooks 2 installed, and tap 'open in iBooks', or download to your PC and sync via iTunes."

Shout is a website that allows students to connect online and interact with experts in the field, share ideas, and collaborate with people around the world who are committed to solving environmental challenges. Shout gives participants a framework for success, with resources and tools for exercising social responsibility while building the 21st-century skills of collaboration, innovation, and critical thinking.

Thinking Skills

"The Buck Institute for Education commissioned the cutting-edge advertising agency, Common Craft, to create a short animated video that explains in clear language the essential elements of Project Based Learning (PBL). This simple video makes the essential elements of PBL come alive and brings to light the 21st Century skills and competencies (collaboration, communication, critical thinking) that will enable K-12 students to be college and work-ready as well as effective members of their communities."