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Teachers must be proficient in, and be able to model, 21st century skills such as finding and managing resources, publishing on the web, and connecting with colleagues, students, parents, and local and global communities.

 If the young people of today are to thrive beyond the walls of the classroom they will need to be able to cope with a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The children of todays Kindergarten will enter the workplace in the fourth-decade of the 21st Century. We debate the merits of teaching 21st Century Skills and what they might be while teaching children who have lived their entire lives in that very century. The challenge is how will schools and individual teachers respond to this drive for urgent change.

online PD for 21st century skills for teachers

"Learn about 21st Century technological careers, and the skills they entail, in this collection of media resources. Adapted for use by high school students and teachers, these resources have been developed in collaboration with Centers and Projects in the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program."

Set in the early years of the 21st century, Inanimate Alice tells the story of Alice and her imaginary digital friend Brad. In episode one, Alice is living with her parents in a remote region of Northern China. Over the course of the remaining episodes, each a self-contained adventure, we see her develop into a talented animator and designer with the biggest games company in the world. Through text, sound, images, music and games, the story of Alice becomes increasingly interactive and game-like, reflecting Alice's own developing skills as a game designer and animator.

It is tempting to make predictions of the skills that our students will need beyond their time at school. Such wondering can be a useful guide as we contemplate what we shall focus on with our curriculum. Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of predictions for future skillsets published by educators, economists and analysts. What might we learn from such lists, and how should education systems respond?