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21st Century Learning and 21st Century Teaching It is about shifting the entire paradigm of education.

We have to change how we teach, how we assess, what we teach, when we teach it, where we are teaching it, who we are teaching and with what. Its a tall order, but these are exciting times.

It is not just about the integration of technology into the classroom, though this is certainly a critical area. The world is not as simple as saying teachers are digital immigrants and students digital natives.

The world has seen significant change in the last few decades, and students will require new skills. 21st century learning and the tools that make it possible allow students to get the most out of their time in school and help students get prepared for the world they'll encounter once they leave school. What this means is that schools must provide the knowledge, skills and expertise students need to succeed in work and life in the 21st century and the tools to build those competencies. Students are being shaped by their environment. The environment they are exposed to is media rich, immediate, fast, engaging, dynamic and instant. Its electronic and digital, Its a communication medium with instant gratification.

21st Century Learner A profile

Characteristics of the 21st Century Teacher

The real digital divide 1. Students prefer receiving info quickly from multiple multimedia sources while many teachers prefer slow and controlled release of info from limited sources. 2. Students prefer parallel processing and multi-tasking while many teachers prefer singular processing and single/limited-tasking. 3. Students prefer processing pictures, sounds and video before text while many teachers prefer to provide text before pictures, sounds and video. 4. Students prefer random access to hyperlinked, interactive, multimedia information while many teachers prefer to provide information linearly, logically and sequentially 5. Students prefer to interact/network simultaneously with many others 6. Students move seamlessly between real and virtual spaces instantaneously - virtual space is any location where people can meet using networked digital devices chat rooms, blogs, wikis, podcasts, email, discussion threads that come and go synchronous and asynchronous and with multitasking, can inhabit more than one virtual space at a time while many teachers prefer to operate in real spaces. 7. Many teachers prefer students to work independently rather than network and interact. 8. Students prefer to learn just-in-time while many teachers prefer to teach just-in-case (its on the exam). 9. Students want instant access to friends, services, and responses to questions, instant gratification and instant rewards while many teachers prefer deferred gratification and deferred rewards. 10. Students prefer learning that is relevant, instantly useful and fun while many teachers prefer to teach to the curriculum guide and standardized tests. Teachers are becoming aware not only of the emerging technologies but also of their own lack of skill. This is challenging times for them and when presented with the new process, technique, skill or tool. They recognise the need to develop the skill, and begin to develop their pathway towards acquiring it. How many teachers are now in this category with Information and communications technology? Particularly when they see the ease with which many students acquire the skills or use the tools. While acquisition of a skill maybe easier for a digital child, they often lack the vision of how to apply and use it to benefit their learning and

development. Teachers, may not have the fluency of a student, but are much better equipped, even at this stage, to see how this technology, skill or process could be adapted to enhance learning. Schools that are starting to integrate technology into classes, beginning with

Interactive WhiteBoards, can identify 3 progressions or stages in the integration and adoption of this technology. Learning about the technology -- Little student interaction Learning with Technology -- part of the classroom rather than a novelty Learning through technology -- integral part of the lesson

ICT Integration in the School environment ICT is an abbreviation for Information and Communication Technologies. This includes a vast variety of tools and technologies.

Some Questions to ask: What are your schools identified ICT objectives and goals? Where does your school want to be ICT wise in 1 year, 5 years or 10 years?

The key question How do we measure ICT integration or implementation? Its not something we can score on a scale of 1 to 10 or measure as achieving with excellence or just passing. The benchmarks for every school and every classroom are different.

In preparing our students for the 21st Century, we must prepare them for the ubiquitous use of technology. We must enable them to adapt and change. But how do we get a measure of ICT integration?

There are three factors or enablers that work together to facilitate integration. If any of these factors are in short supply, then the level of integration will be reduced or impaired.

The three factors The three factors are resources, skills and curriculum. They form a triangle and the area of the triangle is level or degree of integration.

What are these factors or enablers?

1. Resources:

This is the physical and electronic tools available to empower the teacher in the classroom. There is availability of tools like:

Interactive whiteboards Projectors Classroom desktop computers

And much more Coupled with high speed internet access, these tools are great enablers.

But even with a high level of implementation, the other two factors, Skills and Curriculum, must be available in equal volumes.

2. Skills Skills, fall into two categories; Technical and Pedagogical. Of the two, pedagogical skills are more important.

By Technical skills, we refer to the ability to operate the hardware and software resources provided. The teacher should have the ability to adapt, adopt and modify. He/she must have the confidence and competence to facilitate the use of these technologies.

The second category, pedagogical skills, is the more important of the two. The classroom teachers ability to use a variety of suitable pedagogical strategies is the key to ICT integration. The teacher with an understanding of 21st Century pedagogies, who recognises that these technologies are enablers and motivators, is able to enhance the integration of ICT.

The classroom teacher, who structures their lessons to enable all students to access these resources; who by careful planning and management enables the learning to have higher order thinking skills - to create, evaluate and analyse - is a better integrator of ICT. Brilliant learning and ICT integration often comes out of classrooms with one computer, facilitated by a teacher with passion and vision. Imagine the outcomes possible for them with suitable resources and a supportive curriculum.

3. Curriculum relevant content If with the above two you also have resource materials for teaching and learning, tailored to your curriculum, then ICT implementation is easier. Teaching drives the technology rather than technology driving the teaching.

The selection of tools and resources are curriculum driven. These units are constantly reviewed. Teachers and students contribute to the development and revision of the learning experience. They are student centric. 21st Century Learning Space The classrooms of tomorrow must encompass these characteristics.
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Access to technology and media Classroom design enabled for group collaboration Display spaces

21st Century Assessment Assessment, in the form of examinations, has been a constant feature of education since the 18th Century.

21st Century Assessment will enable students to perform rich real tasks, often collaborative, involving higher order thinking. The tasks will reflect and mirror 21st Century learning. They will be clear and transparent, with the student, their peers and the teacher intimately involved in the marking process 21st Century Assessments are focused on both the learning process and the assessment outcome.

21st Century pedagogy How teaching is done must reflect how our students learn. It must also reflect the world our students will move into. This is a world which is rapidly changing, connected, adapting and evolving. The style and approach to teaching must emphasise the learning in the 21st century.

There is a need to teach knowledge or content in context with the tasks and activities the students are undertaking. Our students respond well to real world problems. The delivery of knowledge should scaffold the learning process and provide a foundation for activities. Content delivered without context or other activity has a low retention rate.

Educational success What elements make for a successful education? What do we need to make education successful? Is it the best classrooms? They help but they are not enough by themselves. Is it the best teachers? They are vital but alone are insufficient. What do we need?

This is an area I have been considering for a while and I have a simple formula (with apologies to Albert).

Educational success is the sum of four factors. M is for Motivation C for communication, C for collaboration and Finally C for curriculum We must develop, in students, key fluencies with focus upon 21st Century skills.

I think these are the factors that make for educational success. Transformative Use Audit

Some thought provoking videos

Understanding The Digital Generation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecFizWZgIiA You cant be my teacher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VSymMbMYHA&feature=related The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0&feature=related Do you teach or do you educate? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0fJKvdjQgs&feature=related I teach, therefore you learn... or do you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AWYIit1uNk&feature=fvwrel Learn to Change, Change to Learn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHiby3m_RyM&feature=related Changing Education paradigms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Do schools kill creativity? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY Bring on the learning revolution! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I Top ten tips for using technology in the classroom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiisteObuhk&feature=related

7 skills students need for their future


There is a global achievement gap. Here are outlined the 7 most important skills our students need to be successful in the world. We are even short-changing the most capable students honor students

because weve prepared them in the universal curriculum of taking tests. They are not able to reason, analyze, think The following skills are critical to solving the problems of tomorrow. 1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: In order to stay competitive and relevant, businesses are forced to focus on continuous improvement of processes and products, and how they serve their customers. Toyota, as an example, expects its employees to commit to three responsibilities 1) to produce the best quality products, 2) to find ways to make better products, and 3) to use their knowledge to create the cars of the future. They expect that of all employees. And our students need to have the thinking skills to solve the problems that are presented them in their careers. 2. Collaboration and Leading with influence: We live in a world that is flat. We all know that there are no national boundaries when it comes to commerce, any longer. Which means, when our students eventually find themselves in the work world, it is almost a guarantee that they will find themselves working on a project as a part of a team. Most teams in businesses are without hiearachy and with that comes the need to be able to lead by influence. The most effective way to lead in the 21st century is through the ability to engage people and to ask the right questions. To do this in a global environment, our students must be able to understand and respect differences. 3. Agility and Adaptability: It is the rare individual, in this economy, that will have the same job for their entire career; most people will change jobs at least 10 times during their working years. Even in the case where people find themselves working at the same company for some time, the organization is likely to undergo some form of structural or role change, frequently. The person who is able to adapt the the new environment and role as things change will prove to be the most productive for the company. 4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism: We can compare two different types of employees one who set 5 goals for him or herself and meets all 5 with no problems versus the employee who set 10 goals for him or herself, and reached only 8 of them. The second example is the ideal, because he knows that he or she is setting stretch goals for themself, which is the only way of staying competitive. Businesses need employees who are stretching the envelope, to risk failure in the quest for the next innovation. 5. Effective Oral and Written Communication: The number one complaint of both employers and college professors alike is that young people coming out of both high school and college can not communicate effectively. A senior executive at Dell said that the problem with their writing is with their thinking. They cant analyze, they cant reason. Their writing is fuzzy because their thinking is fuzzy. And that is only half the problem. The other part of the problem is they dont

know how to write with voice. Our students are not able to write persuasively, or clearly articulate a point of view which is extremely important in professional settings. 6. Accessing and Analyzing Information: We are bombarded with information on an hourly basis, and the amount of information that is available in the world is increasing exponentially. What becomes critical is not only the ability to find the information but to determine what is the important information, what is the really critical information versus what is trivial or unimportant. 7. Curiosity and Imagination: In a commoditized world where every product begins to look the same, it is those products that have a more imaginative quality, a more playful element, that is going to capture peoples imagination So to have creative skills becomes increasingly important in the market.

I participated in a fascinating edchat yesterday morning, during which participants attempted to answer the question, In light of education reform, what will a teacher look like and be doing 10 years from today? Unsurprisingly, the conversation focused on what effect technology enhancements will have on education over the next decade.

Given that technology changes so quickly, its extremely difficult to predict how education will change in a decade. Consider that 10 years ago Apple had yet to release the iPod, let alone the iPhone or the iPad. Walkmans and portable CD players were the most common ways to listen to music on the go and smartphones had just started to emerge as consumer products. Wireless connectivity was still a fairly new concept and most companies did not yet offer WiFi services across campus. E-readers were uncommon and most e-books were technical manuals and programming guides. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube did not yet exist and even Friendster was still a few years from being launched.

My work, education and teaching are so dependant on current technology resources that its difficult to conceive of my processes a decade ago. I used PowerPoint to put together

presentations, but I didnt have the huge pool of video resources on YouTube to liven up my talks. I browsed websites for lesson ideas and career resources, but I didnt have a PLN to call on for advice and support.

When I consider how much my life has changed thanks to the technology innovations that have become commonplace over the last 10 years, its almost impossible to predict what Ill be up to 10 years from today. Computers will likely get smaller and smaller, mobile computing will be increasingly common, and educators will be expected to have an online presence rather than reprimanded for it.

Schools have to consider what changes do they think technology will bring to education 10 years from now?

Disruptive innovation in Education


CRISP (The Consortium for Research in School Pedagogy) is a consortium of national and international associates who share a vision for the role of technology in advancing education.

We identify the best resources around the globe and facilitate their entry into the classrooms of India. We provide a global gateway for schools to select outstanding solutions to help teachers teach and students learn.

We advise schools on developing, managing and making fullest use of ICT provisions for learning, using simple systems and tools to achieve exceptional results. We deliver research-based, futuristic, end-to-end ICT integration bespoke solutions for schools

STEP 1 Self-review Framework for


1. Leadership and management 2. Planning 3. Learning 4. Assessment of ICT capability 5. Professional development 6. Resources

STEP 2 Action Plan and budgeting STEP 3 Hardware and software Sourcing; Teacher empowerment STEP 4 Periodic Monitoring STEP 5 Impact on students outcome Audit STEP 6 ITEM (The International Technology in Education Mark) accreditation.

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