Group items tagged

This paper addresses the competences needed in 21st century life especially in relation to civic participation, and the educational requirements to foster them in young people. New technologies are widely used by young people for informal social interaction, video game-playing and giving voice to their views. Incorporation of these practices into the classroom has been fairly slow, despite their manifest potential for promoting agency and civic engagement. The paper argues that this is in part due to the need for a cultural shift in education to accommodate them. Currently, many competences young people will need for the future world of interactive technology and 'bottom-up' information, communication and democracy are mainly being developed through informal practices. These competences, which include adaptability, managing ambiguity, and agency are discussed in relation to civic participation. 

An updated publication designed to help training teachers on ways to optimize the use of information and communication technologies in the classroom has been launched early November 2011 by UNESCO in cooperation with the Commonwealth of Learning, Intel and Microsoft. The ICT Competency Framework for Teachers aims at helping countries to develop comprehensive national teacher ICT competency policies and standards, and should be seen as an important component of an overall ICT in Education Master Plan.

This table by Cheyl Doig shows the relationship between the competencies of the NZ curriculum, what teachers should be enacting to develop these competencies, and how schools/learning communities could be leading staff to be expert role models in these competencies.

Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.

A good piece from someone who is considered an expert in the field. Curation is a becoming a keyword and more common in the education field. It is also not clearly understood  by many: what it is nor how to best leverage it. It is however becoming more critical for digital competency 

The Code of Conduct has been developed for and by the Victorian teaching profession. It identifies a set of principles, which describe the professional conduct, personal conduct and professional competence expected of a teacher by their colleagues and the community

A well written post about content curation and the benefits it can offer teachers and students especially is part of the inquiry process. Discusses how it may be used to develop information literacy skills so they can become competent at locating, evaluating, and useing information

In a heutagogical approach to teaching and learning, learners are highly autonomous and self-determined and emphasis is placed on development of learner capacity and capability with the goal of producing learners who are well-prepared for the complexities of today's workplace. The approach has been proposed as a theory for applying to emerging technologies in distance education and for guiding distance education practice and the ways in which distance educators develop and deliver instruction using newer technologies such as social media.

This guide is designed to equip teachers and teacher educators with the competencies and resources to use ICT to transform their practices and practices of their schools and education system.

"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."

In February 2008, the National Council of Teachers of English began to develop a statement on 21st literacies. This is the product of these ongoing deliberations. As the discussion says, "Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies-from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms-are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups."

reducing our aims just to types of skills risks boring everyone to death with short lived, tool specific training which doesn't address the social and political context of people's lives or their reasons for engaging with technology.

A great Slideshare looking at QR Codes from the marketing point of view. The presentation contains a great explanation of the makeup of a QR code as well as examples of good and not so good uses in marketing. It also looks at other types of codes that compete with QR codes.

Surely there must be some impact all of this technology is having on our brains and behaviours as even mere males become more competent at multi-tasking their technological devices.

When schools communicate, and share strategies they are using to develop mindsets, dispositions and competencies with parents and when parents adopt these strategies and elements of a metalanguage for learning and thinking, our students are better able to integrate the desirable attributes. 

It is difficult to understate the importance of reflective practice for learning. Dewey states that "We do not learn from experience. . . we learn from reflecting on experience", and it is worth taking time to consider the implications of this. How might we maximise the benefits of reflective practise amidst the many competing pressures we confront?

"A theoretical justification for curation and present six key ways that curation can be used to teach about critical thinking, analysis and expression online. We utilize a case study of the digital curation platform Storify to explore how curation works in the classroom, and present a framework that integrates curation pedagogy into core media literacy education learning outcomes."