All Annotations of Weblogg-ed » Response to Jay Matthews at the Washington Post[Preview]

saved by14 people, first byCarmen Tschofen on 2009-01-05, last byLennie S on 2009-01-05

• Sarah Hanawald
  • the majority of “21st Century Skills” are nothing new, and that we should have been teaching them all along.
  • he learning that can be done (and is being done already) using online social tools and networks
  • They need teachers who can help them navigate these complex spaces and relationships online that require, at the very least, a different application of traditional skills and literacies.
• Carmen Tschofen
  • While most kids’ uses of these technologies are “friendship based”, the more compelling shift is when their use is “interest based” or when they connect with other kids or adults around the topics or ideas they are passionate to learn about. With access to the Internet, and with an understanding of how to create and navigate these online, social learning spaces, opportunities for learning widely and deeply reside in the connections that we make with other people who can teach or mentor us and/or collaboarate with us in the learning process.
• Christy Tucker
  • With access to the Internet, and with an understanding of how to create and navigate these online, social learning spaces, opportunities for learning widely and deeply reside in the connections that we make with other people who can teach or mentor us and/or collaboarate with us in the learning process. That, I think, is where we find 21st Century skills that are different and important. Sure, those connections require a well developed reading and writing literacy, and critical thinking and creativity and many of the others are skills inherent to the process. But this new potential to learn easily and deeply in environments that are not bounded by physical space or scheduled time constraints requires us as educators to take a hard look at how we are helping our students realize the potentials of those opportunities.
  • To me, that’s what 21st Century Skills are all about, teaching our kids to navigate the world as they are experiencing it, not the world we experienced.
• Mike Wesch
  • In the online learning world, we have to be full fledged editors, not just readers, because the traditional editors are gone from the process. And, we have to be creators as well. In order for us to be found by potential teachers and collaborators, we need to have a presence, a footprint. I’m fully convinced that my own kids need to publish, need to establish their reputations early by creating and sharing and engaging in ideas in provocative and appropriate ways.
  • You can call it a “fad” if you like, but the reality is that these skills are sorely lacking in our teachers who are suffocating in paper, policies and processes that prevent them from exploring the potential of online networked learning spaces.