How to bring schools out of the 20th Century

How do we ensure that an entire generation of kids does not fail to make the grade…Are we shooting to low?

-- Our kids need to know more about the world, not more useless facts about the world
-- We need to put a premium on creative thinking, innovative thought and seeing patterns through chaos.
--We need to become better consumers of new sources of information
--Our kids need to have good people skills.
--Being skilled as communicators and teams members with people from different cultures.

Focus on depth over breadth: Few would argue that learning the causes of the Civil War is important, but memorizing the battles seems absurd.

This is a summary of an article from Time Magazine, Sunday Dec 10, 2006

21st Century Skills in Wisconsin

As Wisconsin is part of a consortium of states working on 21st Century Skills, the DPI has taken a position on specific skills. Please see:

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/images/stories/states/wi2pagerwebsite.pdf

Visual Explanation

Did You Know 2.0 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o- If you are looking at some basic background to what we are dealing with as digital immigrants this 8 minute video on "You Tube" is a good one. There are numerous other sites on You Tube both in and out of education that are very good, quick visuals. The second was done I believe at Kansas State about how our students view today's classrooms.

Technology Standards for Teachers

1. Technology Operations and Concepts: demonstrating a sound understanding of technology operations and concepts.

2. Planning and designing learning environments and experiences: Teachers can plan and design effective learning environments and experiences supported by technology.

3. Teaching, Learning and the Curriculum: Teachers implement curriculum plans that include methods and strategies for applying technology to maximize student learning.

4. Assessment and Evaluation: Teachers apply technology to facilitate a variety of effective assessment and evaluation strategies.

5. Productivity and Professional practice: Teachers use technology to enhance their productivity and professional practice.

6. Social, ethical, Legal and Human Issues: Teachers understand the social, ethical, legal and human issues surrounding the use of technology in PK-12 schools and apply that understanding in practice.

These are the ISTE (NETS) performance indicators. They are not intended to represent "21st Century Skills". I would hope they could be embraced as a measure of success when we reflect upon acceptable practice.