21st Century Skills- What the Heck?

Amy MeckelborgFaculty of Education, University of Alberta

http://cgconference.wikispaces.com/

Meckelborg

21st Century Skills

What the heck….Are they?

The Networked Student

Wendy Drexler, 2008

What knowledge, skills and attitudes is “the Networked Student”

demonstrating or developing?

New Literacies

The current article in Wikipedia claims there are two “camps”

1. informed by cognitive and language processing theories• focus on examining the cognitive and decoding

processes involved in comprehending online or digital texts

2. grounded in a focus on social practices• use of digital technologies as the means of

producing, sharing, accessing and interacting with meaningful content

• highly collaborative, distributed, and participatory

Multiliteracies

Addresses “the multiplicity of communications channels and media, and the increasing saliency of cultural and linguistic diversity…”

New London Group, 1996

21st Century Literacy

The set of abilities and skills where aural, visual and digital literacy overlap. These include the ability to understand the power of images and sounds, to recognize and use that power to manipulate and transform digital media, to distribute them pervasively and to easily adapt them to new forms.

The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit, 2005

Characteristics of 21st Century Literacy

Multimodal

Includes creative fluency as well as interpretive facility

A new grammar with its own rules of construction (not yet fully understood)

Lends itself to interactive communication

Use of media to evoke emotional responses

Potential to transform the way we learn (appealing, connected and relevant)

The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit, 2005

ISTE’s NETS for Students

… help students prepare to work, live, and contribute to the social and civic fabric of their communities.

… identify several higher-order thinking skills and digital citizenship as critical for students to learn effectively for a lifetime and live productively in our emerging global society.

These areas include the ability to:• Demonstrate creativity and innovation• Communicate and collaborate• Conduct research and use information• Think critically, solve problems, and make decisions• Use technology effectively and productively

http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students.aspx

Inspiring Action

Alberta Education, 2010

Sample Activity

What 21st Century Skills are

the students

developing?

Can you think of ways it

might be tweaked to

increase learning?

21st Century Skills

What the heck….Is a teacher to do?

Don’t stress!

You are not alone

Hundreds of educators are doing the same thing.

They are doing it together.

They are developing their own 21st Century skills while exploring how to help their student do the same.

You can join them.

Personal Learning Network (PLN)

What does your Personal Learning Network look like?

How to Cultivate your PLN

Start Small.

Start where you are.

Start.

Places to Start Online

Blogs

Twitter

Social Networks

Podcasts

PD Opportunities

Resources to help

Teacher Challenge: http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/challenges-2/creating-a-pln/

Cultivate your Personal Learning Network: http://www.tedcurran.net/2011/05/cultivate-your-personal-learning-network/

PLN Yourself: http://suewaters.wikispaces.com/

Take Baby Steps

Don’t take yourself too seriously!

Thank you!

amy.meckelborg@ualberta.ca

Blogs

Will Richardson: http://willrichardson.com/

Dean Shareski: http://ideasandthoughts.org/

Darren Kuropatwa: http://adifference.blogspot.com/

Larry Ferlazzo: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

Sue Water and Ronnie Burt http://theedublogger.com/

Edublog Awards: http://edublogawards.com/

Twitter

Vicki Davis: @coolcatteacher

Alec Couros: @courosa

David Warlick: @dwarlick

Nik Peachy: @NikPeachey

Derek. Keenan: @MrKeenan

Danny Maas: @dannymaas

Social Networks

Classroom 2.0: http://www.classroom20.com/

The Educator’s PLN: http://edupln.ning.com/

Webheads in Action; http://webheads.info/

Podcasts

EdTech Talk: http://edtechtalk.com/ Women of Web 3.0

Teachers Teaching Teachers

The Teachers’ Podcast: http://teacherspodcast.org/

PD Opportunities

K-12 Online Conference: http://k12onlineconference.org/

Electronic Village Online: http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/10708567/FrontPage

Change 2011: http://change.mooc.ca/

Library 2.011: http://www.library20.com/page/2011-conference