STSD Curriculum & Technology Update

Regular updates and musings on curriculum and technology in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA.

21st Century Skills & New Media Literacies

As with anything worth doing there are always resistors and critics. In Monday’s Washington Post, education reporter Jay Matthews titled his column The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st-Century Skills. In his column, Matthews contends that there is nothing new about 21st century skills. “Young Plato and his classmates did the same thing in ancient Greece.” There is a typical flaw in Matthew’s thinking - understanding how age-old skills look different in the technology-rich world of 2009. What is different then? Take two minutes to watch this video, and I think you’ll start to see how technology changes, in both bold and subtle ways, the rules of the game where “skills” are concerned.

For a detailed response to Matthew’s column, read Will Richardson: Response to Jay Matthew at the Washington Post

Comments

When I read Matthews’ column, I was struck by the fact that he wasn’t saying 21st century skills aren’t important.  In fact, I believe he was agreeing some of these skills have been important for centuries.  I do believe that the skills look different in 21st century society due in large part to new technologies that promote global communciation and truly support “producers” of learning.  What really struck me about Matthews’ column was his opinion that teachers will have a hard time learning new instructional approaches and skills because they are too inexperienced, not interested, or too cyncial to learn new ways.  As a professional educator, I find his assessment of our profession insulting!  Do we have room to improve?  Absolutely!  Do we need to recognize the shift to creating 21st century classrooms takes time.  Positively!  Do I think that the majority of teachers aren’t interested in providing a 21st century education to students!  I do not!  Call me optimistic, unrealistic, or foolishly committed, but I want to believe teachers are learners and are willing to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in the 21st century.

I agree with the video. We are living more and more in a media saturated society, which relies more and more on visual messages rather than text based messages.

May I suggest that interested viewers click on Matthew’s actual article and then read the posted comments.  Some are quite astute.

Viewing this clip precipitates mixed emotions in me.  It’s incredibly exciting to think about all the changes my students and own sons will be embracing as they move through the twenty first century.  It can also be dizzingly scary to think about how my own experience negotiating the world (influenced by Marshall McLuhan’s explorations of media) is both like and unlike these digital natives I teach and raise.  I can celebrate that the possibilities of using media place the user in a much more interactive role than the often passive ones of my generation’s youth. 
How do we sift through what’s important?  What do we need to pass on to the next generation?  What can we leave behind?  How do we encourage safe, responsible and ethical use of media?  How can we successfully do this without hindsight?  I probably still have more questions than answers. 
Unfortunately, it’s too easy to assign “twentieth first century learning” the label of “buzz phrase” as a fad that will come and go.  What I do know is that our youth will be surrounded with technology that will not go away—only change.  They already embrace it, and one of the most exciting opportunities I get as an educator is seeing my students engaged as learners doing things I would not have imagined when I was their age.
I found Richardson’s response to the Washington Post article (and others to his blog) informative and worth reading.  It reminds me of why I cannot put these questions and mixed feelings on the backburner of my professional life.  If you skipped over that bottom link of Randy’s as I almost did, check it out!

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