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Learning to write is one of the fundamental skills we gain from our time at school. Writing is one of the cornerstones of learning and we devote significant time and energy towards its mastery. Skilled writing is a mark of an educated individual and a skill required for academic success. But in the modern world what makes a skilled writer? What has changed about writing and what literary skills should we focus our attention on. 

"Critical thinking is a skill that we can teach to our students through exercise and practice. It is particularly a skill that contains a plethora of other skills inside it. Critical thinking in its basic definition refers"  to a diverse range of intellectual skills and activities concerned with evaluating information as well as evaluating our thought in a disciplined way ". All of our students think in a way or another but the question  is , do they really think critically ? are they able to evaluate the information they come across ? are they capable of going beyond the surface thinking layer ? Can they make connections between what they learn and the outer world? Can they question the status quo of their knowledge ?"

Post by Mary Beth Hertz. She lists some skills by grade level that she aims to have her students obtain. Each skill is rated per grade as either an Introductory (I), Developing (D) or Applied (A) Skill.

So what is Computational Thinking? Well it is a collection of diverse skills to do with problem solving that result from studying the nature of computation. It includes some obviously important skills that most subjects help develop, like creativity, ability to explain and team work. It also consists of some very specific problem solving skills such as the ability to think logically, algorithmically and recursively. Computer Science is unique in the way it brings all these diverse skills together.

"Chart created by Andrew Churches in which he relates higher order thinking skills included in Blooms Taxonomy to different digital skills. The purpose is to highlight the importance of technology and digital skills in today's learning."

From the Educational Technology & Mobile Learning blog "Enokson has created for us a kind of road map containing all the major critical thinking skills we need to know about. He put these skills into an image that you can download from Flicker. Here his image has been turned it into an infographic-like embeddable HTML code to use on your website or blog. Check the code below if you want to embed it on your blog but please if you are to use this link anywhere else online make sure to pay credit to Enokson.

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

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.

Helping students to cultivate the skills needed for writing is often about cultivating a love of writing. Every student needs to be able to express themselves clearly, concisely and intelligently, whatever they are going to end up doing in later life. "The best way to help them develop those skills is to make writing personal and give them a vested interest in communication. Blogs have become one of the most popular website formats in recent years. Blogging websites have become the essential ways for many people to broadcast their personal stories, challenges and insights. This has created both a new generation of budding writers as well as a generation with a keen interest in the stories of others. Blogging offers an immersive experience. Students are simply encouraged to begin a blog chronicling their life story or a subject that ignites their interest. That's when the skills are picked up and developed as a matter of course. The initial blogging assignment should be simple, but at the same time offer a bit of a challenge." Post offers some useful advice about blogging.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is pleased to offer Route 21, a one-stop-shop for 21st century skills-related information, resources and community tools

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.

Links to the apps used in the activities published an eBook titled Hot Apps 4 HOTS: A Guide to Using Free Apps to Support Higher Order Thinking Skills by Lisa Johnson and Yolanda Barker. The book includes nine step-by-step activities that focus on each level of Bloom's taxonomy and includes loads of links to further resources.

"Digital Information Fluency (DIF) is the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically. DIF involves knowing how digital information is different from print information; having the skills to use specialized tools for finding digital information; and developing the dispositions needed in the digital information environment. As teachers and librarians develop these skills and teach them to students, students will become better equipped to achieve their information needs."

We all want to nurture a learning culture in our classroom. One that cultivates skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, critical judgement and interpretation. For this to happen we need to pose learning problems and questions that demand the development of these skills. Well-posed questions can be simple questions but the right questions can drive much more learning and elicit insight that those complex questions that don't ask students to really think. Framing good questions is an art and some suggested questions are discussed here.

Some useful guides to creating useful lesson plans for teaching study 9research) skills. Linked to US Common core standards but easily fit with Aus ones.

Designed to assist teachers to help their students, Microsoft offers this a free 37 page ebook entitled Developing Critical Thinking Through Web Research Skills. The ebook presents strategies for teaching Internet search skills and strategies for evaluating information. The ebook also links to many additional resources for teaching web search strategies. There are strategies and resources appropriate for students from in early elementary grades through high school included in the ebook. AOf course it has many references to Bing and other Microsoft products, but overall it is a good resource.

ICTeD Services offers professional development to schools. It in located in Melbourne, Australia. ICTeD Services specialises in teaching Information and Communication Technology skills to whole schools, to teams of teachers, and to groups of teachers and students learning together. These skills can include the use of digital video, animation, multimedia, Web 2.0 technologies, and website design and can be integrated into a variety of curriculum areas.

Web 2.0 tools in the information skills process

Article summarizing recent finding that shows students using technology especially for writing have better core literacy skills. "Children who blog, text or use social networking websites are more confident about their writing skills: - The National Literacy Trust.