Starting off

In an effort to minimize the number of things I'm printing off to read later, I wanted to start a digital archive of things related to digital learning that I find interesting or helpful. Its long been a goal, but this year it became a resolution so there is actually action being taken.

I thought I'd start off with this paste of a note that I recently wrote to a teacher who participated in a study that we did for DragonflyTV - she'd inquired about some of the important trends/issues in education. "Our basic questions: What skills will our students need to be successful in the future? What will our schools (elementary, middle, high school) need to look like? (Communication, teaching methods, project oriented, etc.)."

Here's my response...and I'd welcome any feedback that folks want to share.

There are a lot of initiatives related to school restructuring that are attempting to tackle the same kinds of questions that it seems like you are trying to address. I suspect that you are familiar with the 21st Century Learning Skills initative, but if not, that's a great place to start ( http://www.21stcenturyskills.org) That movement, now a few years old, started out of a partnership between business leaders and educators - to think through the types of skills students would need to be competitive in the global workforce as adults. Most people think that "21st Century Skills" is synonymous with "Technology Skills," but there are actually a wide range of skills including communication skills, collaboration skills, info seeking skills, etc. A quick read of "The World is Flat" is also a must for folks looking to get a good sense of what today's students will likely face as adults in an increasingly global economy.

Another area that I work in/have personal interest in that is starting to change the way some people and schools are thinking about teaching/learning is Gaming and Digital Media. There is a huge project-funding and research initiative supported by the MacArthur Foundation that is currently underway to better understand the potential uses of gaming (and other rich media resources) in education. Past research has shown games to be powerful learning tools in nearly all areas of the curriculum when used properly ( e.g., as an integral component of instruction, wherein students are given agency to explore, experiment, make mistakes, genuinely learn from their mistakes, and - with help from their teachers - figure out how lessons learned in-game can transfer to the real world). The appeal of games is undeniable, but educators who have embraced their innate ability to teach (to succeed at most games - a player must be able to learn, adapt, and apply what they've learned in increasingly challenging tests) have been fascinated by the positive outcomes, not only in student motivation, but also in terms of learning gains & and true comprehensive of complex subjects. One of the fears of MacArthur, and other proponents of highly interactive media use in education, fear that current educational systems in the US are unable to fully embrace new media resources because of reliance/dependence on outdated pedagogical and assessment techniques ( e.g., some teachers being reluctanct to pass control to students and a mind-set that failing is bad - even if more powerful learning ultimately results). It is definitely worth looking into and considering - here's a long link that gets you to the MacArthur site (and theyve got some other great resources listed from there) http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.2029199/k.BFC9/Home.htm?&auid=2276796

Those are the two programs/initiatves that most readily come to mind. I'm sure its also come up in your discussion with stakeholders in your district that today's students are so different than those of 10 or even 5 years ago. They have grown-up with access to the internet, are experts at multi-tasking (sending instant messages, while downloading music, while posting messages on friends' blogs, while doing homework...) They live in a global world, but so often, in school they are cut off from that world. Outside of school they are developing skills for living in the 21st century, but during school hours they are learning 19th and 20th century knowledge via 19th and 20th century learning techniques ( e.g., memorization of facts delivered via lecture). That is, of course, a gross generalization - there are certainly educators doing fantastic things with technology and media (we certainly saw some of that in the DragonflyTV study) but there are also a whole lot of teachers and schools that haven't yet made a shift into the 21st century where teaching and learning are concerned. Training and mentoring are key components of any program that seeks to have teachers implement new media and instruction that incorporates 21st Century Learning Skills more fully. Partnerships between k-12 schools and teacher education programs have also proven to be quite successful (you can check out information about grants funding through the US federal government's PT3 program: - the old website www.pt3.org seems to be down, but try: http://pt3.altec.org/about/grants_action.html). Successful partnerships give schools a chance to help shape the skill sets of future educators while giving them practical experiences in educational settings - and teacher education candidates bring a wealth of knowledge about new techniques and teaching strategies to try out, its a win-win!

Finally, I'm a big proponent of media literacy - and this is part of most 21st Century Learning Skill-sets as well. Traditionally, we learned to read and write print literature of various types. We learned how to critically interpret what we were reading, and we learned to distinguish good examples of writing from bad examples of writing, and we got to practice what we knew through various writing exercises where-in we created our own "literature." The same types of techniques can, and arguably should, be applied to media as well. Students need to better understand how to visually and verbally communicate and can come to do so more proficiently by a more thorough study and subsequent understanding of media.