21st Century Attributes Every Learner Should Possess

We live in a world of academic standards. Although much debate surrounds the virtues of a standards-based education, it is still important to consider why do standards even exist? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a standard is “a level of quality or achievement that is considered acceptable or desirable”. Applying this definition to 21^st century education, have we as an industry achieved an acceptable or desirable level of 21^st century proficiency in our students? Or, do we need to rethink what learning objectives our instruction truly targets? The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) produced a list of 21^st century attributes every 21^st century child should possess. In the age of Common Core, does our education model effectively promote these skills in our students? If not, do we need to ensure these attributes, or standards are taught? 

Core attributes found in the ISTE and IASL standards include:

• Intellectual curiosity and innovation
• Ability to locate, select, evaluate and structure information
• Problem solving and decision-making creative and critical thinking
• Communication, negotiation and collaboration skills
• Ethical and productive users and producers of media
• Responsible and flexible users of social media
• Active digital citizenship
• Capacity to think across disciplines and form authentic knowledge connections

Eight Skills Every 21st Century Worker Must Have

An increasing number of studies show that employers are demanding 21^st Century Skills from their workers.  As the United States and other post-industrial economies shift away from manufacturing, the skill sets required by employers are changing as well.  Gone are the days where a worker could be highly desired after only mastering rote memorization and routine-manual abilities.  Today’s employers want a workforce that can work together, critically analyze global problems and creatively find solutions.  As educators we must recognize this reality and rethink our instruction.  Are we requiring our students to develop these critical 21^st century skills?

Shared Leadership- participative leading where all team members are making decisions.  How can we structure classroom activities to enforce participative leadership?

Collaboration/Communication- following the shared leadership theme, the ability to listen and actively contribute in a team environment is a crucial skill for 21^st century workers.  How much of your instructional activities require students to work together and communicate effectively? 

Adaptability- the world continues to advance rapidly quickly making the ability to be fluid and adaptable a crucial skill.  How can we incorporate adaptability into our instruction? 

Innovation/Creativity- The “Creative Economy” or “Innovative Economy” refers to production largely focused on the generation of new ideas, products, and services.  As the United States and other post-industrial economies continue to advance, creativity and innovation become more highly sought after skills by employers.  How can you structure your lesson design so that it requires kids to think creativity?

Critical Thinking (Accessing, analyzing and synthesizing information)-

As previously discussed in this blog, the Digital Revolution has brought access to infinite amounts of information, and subsequently degraded the value of information.  So, as educators we are no longer tasked with the distribution of content, but instead teaching kids how to use information.  How can we ensure our lessons tap Bloom’s Higher-Ordered thinking and stay way from simple recall?

Productivity and accountability- computing and communication advances have increased worker productivity to the highest levels ever seen.  This is not multi-tasking, but instead the ability to utilize 21^st century tools to increase the speed and quality of work products.  How can we design our learning outcomes to ensure kids are learning to use modern work tools to increase their learning and productivity levels?

Entrepreneurialism- moving beyond the traditional definition, 21^st century entrepreneurialism refers to individuals identifying global problems/needs and utilizing 21^st century resources to provide solutions.  Clearly, from a capitalistic perspective, there is money to be made, however not all entrepreneurialism must be profit driven.  Is it possible to teach kids how to identify areas of potential need and the ability to solve them?  

Global Citizenship- globalization continues to erode physical boundaries that traditionally have divided peoples.  Never before have ideas, information, and people been able to freely move across the globe.  Toward this end, educators need to instill a sense of collective ownership in students.  Is your instruction promoting global citizenship?

Teachers, you can be in two places at once!

This amazing app allows a teacher to be in two places at once!

With class sizes on the rise and differentiated grouping a must, what teacher hasn't wished for the ability to be in two places at once?

In my own little kindergarten literacy world, my class size won't permit for any fewer than five differentiated reading groups.  More groups means fewer minutes available to instruct each group, and fewer meetings with each group throughout the week. That said, I struggle to meet the needs of my diverse student population because of time constraints.

If the problem is not enough time to engage with each student group, then the only solution would have to be one that allows me to duplicate myself.  Enter Show Me.  This app is very simple to use and I was up and running with it in a matter of minutes.  I use Show Me to extend my guided reading lesson past my kidney table.  First, I select the texts that I want my students to engage in. I use my iPad to take pictures of each page of the book, and then crop the pages to look neat and tidy using the standard photo editor.  To simplify my life, I put the pages of each book into their own album, so that as I am creating my Show Me presentation, I only have to look at the pictures that are relevant.  When my husband is helping out with the photography, he takes pictures and crops them down on his iPad.  Then he puts each book's photos into its own Photo Stream, and shares the streams with me.  I don't get bogged down in this part of the process, and I don't stress over the perfection of the pictures.  Like I once heard Jonathan Bergmann say, "Do you want it done perfect [sic], or do you want it done by Tuesday?"

Once the pictures are done, I open the Show Me app and upload the front cover on page one.  Then, using the right arrow, I load all of the subsequent pages.  Show Me only has ten pages available to pre-upload on to, but don't worry if you need more, there is a way around that which I will explain in a bit.  No matter how many pages my book has, I always make sure that the front cover is the last picture in my presentation, as well as the first.  That is because the file icon that the app uses to display each presentation is the last "slide" in the recording.

After all ten pages of the app are loaded with my book pics, I am ready to record.  I start each lesson by greeting the children and telling them the purpose for our reading--which learning targets, sight words, text features, etc. we will be working on with this book.  I then go through the lesson just as if I were sitting at the kidney table with them, but with some added perks.  For one, I can use my finger or stylus to write directly on the text or picture we are looking at.  I do underline the text as we read, write out sight words, point out phonograms, discuss letter differences (b vs. d), and many other reading strategies and skills.  If at any time I want to erase what is on the page, I simply click on the eraser and "clear drawings only."  I can do this right in the middle of recording (it won't show up on the posted presentation), or I can pause to do it.

Pausing in the middle of the book also allows me to think about what I want to say next.  I do this often when I am stuck, because there is no way to rewind.  If I mess up, then the only way to erase what I have said is to start the whole project over--from scratch.  Pausing is also important if my book has more than ten pages, because after recording the tenth slide, I can pause, click the eraser and "clear all." Then I just upload the next picture, record that page, and repeat this process until all of the pages are done.

After my last page is recorded, I show the cover again and give the students instructions on what to do next: "Go read the book to a friend. Then put it back in the bag for the next group to enjoy, and have a wonderful day."

There are many teachers using this app in a variety of ways.  Some simply use it as a white board--Kahn academy style while others use it to edit student text. You can even create student accounts so that students are using the tech productively instead of just receptively.  Oh, the list goes on and on, and you can gain inspiration from others by exploring others' posts.  Yes, everything you create is subject to world review. Joy.

One word of caution.  If you create your Show Me account at home, be leery of using the "Sign up with Facebook" option.  Depending on your district's mobile network settings, your access to post new presentations in your app may be limited.  It may not be impossible to post, even if your district blocks Facebook on mobile devices, but it won't be as easy as clicking "Log in with Facebook".

21st Century Teaching Skills Every Educator Should Have

The last post on this blog discussed the Digital Revolution and its impact on classroom instruction.  The graph helped illustrate the differences between Education 1.0 (20^th century instruction) to Education 3.0 (21^st century instruction).  To stick with the “Point-oh” theme just a little longer, today’s discussion will focus on specific 21^st century skills all teachers should have, or be actively developing.  If you want to read the entire article (YouTube videos included!), you can do so here.

1)   Be a Risk Taker

            Don’t be afraid to experiment with your instruction.  Is every new idea always going to work?  Of course not.  But many will and the more risks you take, the more alive your classroom will become.  Don’t grow stale teaching the same thing, the same way, year in and year out.  You and your students are better than that!

2)   Actively Collaborate with other teachers and your students

        One of the most critical elements of the 21^st century is the ability to communicate with people with absolute ease.  Think email, text messaging, social media, Twitter, wikis, forums, video chatting, the list seems endless.  Each of these technologies connects us in ways unimaginable even 10 years ago.  Take advantage of this and allow your students to as well!

3)   Model the behavior you want to see in your students

        Be the change you wish to see, right?  If we demonstrate healthy risk taking, collaboration, life-long learning to our students, they will feel encouraged to do the same.  If our students see us pushing our boundaries of comfort, they too will feel empowered to push their own. 

4)   Be a visionary

        As teachers we want to foresee emerging technologies and implement them into our instruction.  Be creative!  Don’t let old ideologies or confines limit your thinking about what is possible in today’s world of learning.

5)   Commit to being a life-long learner

       This may be the most important trait of them all.  Most of us became teachers because we value learning.  Take this inherent belief and apply it toward your instructional practice.  Is there new research or professional literature that can help keep you fresh?  The Internet is filled with professional forums, blogs, articles, and videos of other teachers sharing what they are doing in their classrooms.  Learn from them and don’t be afraid to steal an idea from time to time.

6)   Become fluent in new communication modalities

        The 21^st century has brought with it new modalities of communication.  This has occurred with both positive and negative implications.  Regardless, social media, Twitter and text messaging are here to stay, so now we need to teach our students how to be responsible users.  This starts with us, the teachers, learning how to use them too.  Start out slow and gradually build up your 21^st century communication arsenal.  If you don’t have a Facebook page, start one!  Not on Twitter, create a handle and begin Tweeting!

7)   Adapt your current practices

        Finally, and most importantly, remember that just because the world is changing doesn’t mean all that was, is bad.  My guess is, even if you have not adopted any of the 21^st century tools into your instruction, your classroom is still a wonderful place to be.  Preserve that!  Don’t throw it all out in the name of technology.  Think about what current practices you employ that are successful and keep them.  Think what other practices could be slightly modified.  Finally, think about which current practices could be abandoned and replaced with new strategies more adapted to fit 21st century model of instruction.  A healthy combination of an “All of the Above” approach will preserve what works but also keep things moving into the 21st century too!

Revolutionizing Education to the Next “Point-Oh”

What is digital information and why is it revolutionizing how humans live?  This question will not only define the modern age, but will fundamentally shape human existence forever.  The “Digital Age” or the “Digital Revolution” is occurring, right here, right now.  Through the span of history there have only existed two other Revolutions (with the a capital “R”)—the Neolithic (Agriculture) and the Industrial.  Revolutions entail an advancement that fundamentally change every aspect of human existence.  The Digital Revolution is forcing us to rethink everything.  The following video illustrates the Digital Revolution’s impact on information.

The terms Web 1.0 or Web 2.0 have become commonplace across the nomenclature of modern day lexicon.  However, what exactly does “point-oh” mean and how can educators apply it to their practice?

In layman’s terms, the 1.0 refers to a system (in this case the Internet) where the users have access only.  If you think back to the early days of the Web, 98% of Internet users viewed information only.  If a user wanted to add content, it required the knowledge of code to embed onto webpages.  Websites were designed for people to consume information only. There was no “user-generated” content. This all changed with the advent of XML coding.

XML allowed for any user, regardless of coding knowledge, to contribute content to the Internet.  This allowed for the viewing 98% to become active contributors to the Web.  Anyone with a connected computer could upload content to the Internet.  Think Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, comment sections on webpages, and YouTube.  Since anyone could contribute to the web, instead of simply access it, Web 2.0 was born!  And the world was forever changed.

OK, I know many of you are thinking, “Enough with the history lesson” (sorry I was World History teacher in a previous life), “What does this have to do with teaching?”  Although that is a great question, the answer is simple—everything! 

Remember, a Revolution (capital “R”) entails a fundamental shift to every aspect of human existence.  Much of education today is still rooted in the material-age of information (think libraries and filing cabinets).  Students come to class to gain access to information.  We will call this Education 1.0.  However, just like every other facet of life, the Digital Revolution is changing the purpose of old institutions.  Students now have access to infinite amounts of information.  So just like the Web 1.0 evolved to Web 2.0, so too must Education. 

Education 2.0 is defined by the use of the technology and social elements of Web 2.0 in the existing Education 1.0 classroom.   Think Substitution versus Redefinition of the SAMR Model SAMR Model Blogpost.  Even though we are upgrading our product (instruction), we are not revolutionizing it.  Education 3.0 takes the next step to Revolution (capital “R”) of instruction, and subsequently to learning.  But what does this look like?  Check out the graph at the beginning of this post to see a side-by-side comparison of Education 1.0/2.0/3.0 or read the White Paper it was taken from here.  Another place to look for Education 3.0 is Sugata Mitra's Self Organized Learning Environments, spoken about previously on this blog SOLEs.