The years will roll on, new technologies will emerge, new problems will arise … but basic competencies must prevail. What is (most) important is the ability to comprehend, analyse, synthesise information, infer from the con- text, think and problem solve, rationalise, and be a critical thinker.—Rozhan Idrus. Nov 19, 2012.
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The following set of skills will equip students with the ability to critically select and evaluate the literature and the data they amass. Several posts express the importance of the “right” skills being imparted:
I agree that students should have the right tools to address and analyse the uncertainties … But among such tools should be the ability to ana- lyse both knowledge (and) ethically human actions arising from the use of knowledge.—Sérgio Silva. Jan 3, 2013.
The ability to ‘cut & paste’ means nothing when the (students) don’t under- stand the context and have no ability to join information together. We want them to be critical thinkers rather than rote performers. Technically this has not changed [anything]. Only the peripherals have changed. These compe- tencies are still relevant even into the next century. This is more like, ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ Give them the skills, they will adapt for the future…—ibid.
The next poster emphasised that students need to be given the right tools to analyse. Furthermore, they must be able to analyse not just to extract knowledge, but also to extract ethics.
Another poster suggested that analysis (of research papers) was being taught incorrectly. For example, medical students were being taught that as alpha values were not mentioned in the paper, the paper was summarily dismissed as not wor- thy of being discussed by the health-care team.—William Lester. Dec 10, 2012.
While there will always be a need for developing basic higher order thinking skills, the posters recognise the importance of teaching these skills in knowing hands with carefully selected, discipline-specific measures.
Learning is not regurgitating information, but rather transforming that informa- tion into knowledge by skilfully and critically manipulating that information.
B: Building Knowledge, Constructivism
In the 21st century, knowledge building is fostered by building a bridge from the known to the new. Yet unlike traditional knowledge acquisition, students, often in teams, are assisted to become the creators rather than merely the consumers of new knowledge.
A: Ability to Select, Analyse, Synthesise, Infer, Rationalise
We paraphrase one emphatic poster who expressed the thought: «All teachers should refuse to teach the way they were taught.»—Ramanujam Meganathan (Nov 17, 2012). He was apparently quoting Andy Hargreaves, and acknowledges that
“Critical pedagogy and Constructivist ideas are important.”
Jonathan Edwards, on the other hand, placed a stronger emphasis on the future need for teachers to understand “constructivism as an approach to the learning with digital tools”—Jonathan Edwards. Nov 15, 2012.
Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges …which they invite their students to cross [over], then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.—Issam Sinjab.
Dec 24, 2012.
The beauty of inquiry approaches is the flexibility they permit in thinking and creating. True inquiry (or scientific practice) fosters [the] development of critical thinking” writes another poster. “Students can then apply these skills to research on the WWW, with respect (to) any specific problem set they are tasked with.—William Jackson. Dec 21, 2012.
A hallmark of inquiry-based instruction, when it is conducted properly, is that students are engaged in learning … content while engaging in investiga- tions to answer their own questions about the world. This takes care of the relevance and motivation factors. Perhaps most important, such an approach leverages the simplicity and limitlessness of episodic learning while provid- ing the thinking skills necessary for learners to be critical consumers and producers of information—Robert Landsman. Dec 14, 2012.
The world is ever changing, and teachers need to stay abreast of the cur- rent technology and allow students to infuse it as they experience new knowledge.—Elzora Watkins. Nov 15, 2012 (Our emphasis).
A language arts teacher pointed out that her students were generating their own literature. (Always our emphasis.)
Our poster pointed out:
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«I think that the practice of taking students to build knowledge from work projects, using problem solving and case studies can be a very interesting approach for a teacher in the 21st century. A very common mistake is to confuse access to information with knowledge.
The teacher’s job must be to focus on activities and pedagogy that emphasises the role of the student and the production of knowledge. In the knowledge society the transmission of knowledge has lost the importance it had in the past. Today the need is for students to get good information. They need to select and use it creatively to solve problems, create pro- jects, study a reality, understand a situation, etc. I think the concept of rescuing of Piaget thought might be a great help especially if combined with the basis of constructivism.»—
Sérgio Silva. Nov 20, 2012.
Knowledge building should be a partnership between teachers and students and students with other students and members of the wider community. Knowledge building has currency when there is an authentic task, projects, motivation and intentionality.
Later analysis of the vast amount of data further revealed this paraphrase:
«21st century teachers must be education leaders. They must be skilled leaders, motivating, inspiring, compassionate, change agents and innovative.»—Florencia Maldia.
Oct 19, 2013.
Maldia’s post reiterates the need for self-efficacy in the teaching profession.
Many educational institutions hire people who fit into their traditional ways of teaching and learning rather than people who stand out. Together as agents of change, we have the power to revolt against the past and destroy old thinking to build a 21st century future.
D: Developing Digital Literacy in Teachers and in the Classroom
Many posters pointed to the need for teachers and students to learn to be computer literate, Web literate and database literate. We start this section with a poster who eloquently asks our subquestion:
«My 6 year old foster child got hold of an iPad when she was 3 and was transfixed by it, more than with the television. There is no doubt in my mind it accelerated her literacy and numeracy development. She now speaks and sings in 3 languages. So, what does this imply for the 21st century skills of teachers?»—Jon Mason. Feb 22, 2013.
The discussion about the skills necessary to make effective and efficient use of technological tools goes back to the early 70s, where the development of com- puter literacy skills essentially addressed only the topics of hardware and software.
Back then, being computer literate meant knowing elementary topics such as the way an operating system works, how to save, copy, open, delete or print a file, how to format a disc, how to use specific types of software (e.g., the text editor, the spreadsheet). This view of computer literacy was actually very similar to the existing view of general literacy that included mastering skills such as reading, writing and counting, almost as a clone of the abilities that one could master with paper-and-pencil.
Training programs for computer literacy began to advance with progress in technological tools. New abilities were included in the broad notion of computer literacy, particularly with the rise of the Internet. By the 90s it was expected that a technologically literate person would be proficient in using data collection tools, statistical tools, and communication tools that could include presentation programs.
However, the general community was already considering knowledge about ethical issues in manipulating data and safety in using the Internet. By including a palette of indispensable skills to the notion of computer literacy, a new concept—digital literacy—arose. This includes not only the knowledge and essential abilities about the general use of computers, other digital devices and associated software, but also attitudes and behaviour related to the effective use of those tools, placing an emphasis on the cultural, economic and political aspects of digital tools.
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New types of digital tools need new behavioural patterns, new abilities, and new knowledge. By 2006, a European project entitled DigEuLit aimed at devel- oping a theoretical framework to guide European teachers and students in shar- ing a common understanding about digital literacy. Digital literacy comprised the
“awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthe- sise digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to ena- ble constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process” (Martin 2006).
We continue to look at the characteristics of two 21st century teenagers: «My daughter is 19 years old and studying media. I thought she was reading lit- tle. But she was born with computers at home and can be described as a “digital native”. She still thinks that books are important, but the digital format is more
“familiar”.»—Sérgio Silva. Jan 7, 2013.
(C)ompetence with “contemporary” digital literacies is essential. The chal- lenges of the 21st century in relation to digital technologies will no doubt be mind-boggling—they will continue to rapidly evolve and the changes we have witnessed in a little over 12 years are already revolutionary.
Importantly, “digital literacy” used to be conceived in terms of managing the Windows-Icon-Mouse-Pointer … environment. But now, we also have the more intimate Natural User Interface … of hand-held technologies and a far wider range of channels of engagement as a consequence of social media.
—Jon Mason. Feb 22, 2013.
The nerds of today copy PPT files or take photos with their smartphones of slides with comments.—Michael Brückner. Jan 15, 2013.
These two snippets are a sweet foreboding of the characteristics of future intakes.
D1. Digital Literacy, What Is It Really?
The most straightforward idea of what it means to be a “digital literate in the 21st century” is that, despite the everyday emergence of new digital tools, there is a relatively stable set of basic competences that must be mastered. Some posters included the appropriate use of digital tools to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and analyse digital resources—in a functional way.
D: Developing Digital Literacy in Teachers …
Though, as this perspective receives general agreement it is also correct to emphasise other aspects of digital literacy: those related to the actions and atti- tudes of the digital literate person.
The years will roll on, new technologies will emerge, new problems will arise
… but basic competencies must prevail. What is more important is the ability to comprehend, analyse, (have skills in) information synthesis, inference from context, thinking and problem solving, rationaliz(ing), and critical thinking … (This) skills set will take one through anything.—Rozhan Idrus. Nov 19, 2013.
Furthermore, the set of elementary skills mentioned above are often related to other types of literacy, mostly emerging from the cultural and social empowerment that the Web 2.0 brought to life. These skills include: «visual literacy, audio lit- eracy, tactile literacy, and digital literacy.»—Jonathan Edwards. Nov 15, 2012.
I spearheaded a collaborative action research project with an elementary school … (largely poor, immigrant children) to change how we thought about and taught literacy which invited into the classroom the children’s lin- guistic backgrounds (talk about global learning!), and digital ways of com- municating that lifted kids from the controlled static 2D page and gave them collaborative ownership of dynamic projects. Some examples: Grade 4/5 read Cinderella, and (made) critical takes on Cinderella and then explored the human senses, found what they thought was beautiful in all of them and did collaborative works creating, explaining (in multiple languages) and presenting these in a filmed gallery. The Ugly Duckling was read across different … age groups, where they created paper maché duck hats, and ultimately, an interactive Smartboard game where a mirror hid a real child’s face. Then, identified by a question … they offered … their personality, interests, and so on. (S)o a face was identified not by features but by person- ality, if you will. There were many such fascinating projects over 10 years—
see my RG page for references.—Heather Lotherington. May 9, 2013.
Still, regarding the communicational aspect of technological tools, a deep discus- sion pervaded the debate about digital literacy—which also refers to the ability “to write” programs. While today coding skills are viewed as being beyond the reach of the average [non-mathematical] person, “the number of jobs for programmers and computer scientists is growing rapidly, with demand far outpacing supply” (Resnick 2013). Yet, for quite some time, several researchers and well known authors have been emphasising the importance of developing coding skills as from an early age—
as a way of preventing future generations of becoming excluded from the production of digital knowledge (DiSessa 2000; Papert 1980; Resnick 2003).
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There is so much information available to students … so teachers must try to help students develop critical thinking skills. These skills will help students to research and evaluate the information that they find so that they can select the useful information. I also believe that teachers must be literate in com- munication technology in order to be aware of the sources of information we can have access to.—Mariyam Nashida. Jul 14, 2013.
Actually ICT has changed our relationship with knowledge, which ulti- mately means changing the way we learn. One of the most visible con- sequences of this is what we call progress of development. We have seen children 6, 7 years old writing lines of computer code. And it is becoming increasingly common. Children decipher complex codes present in a speed game (and with a cognitive process totally unknown to us yet).—Sérgio Silva. Feb 20, 2013.
This particular skill is acknowledged by the next poster, whose contribution also includes the necessity of understanding how digital literacy skills may be affecting the way we grasp the world to acquire knowledge and learn from these interactions.
But one other distinctive feature of the contemporaneous understanding of digi- tal literacy entails the idea of mastering the use of technological tools for under- standing the surrounding world and acting accordingly for solving the problems we come across.
Previous quotes encompass the importance of developing critical thinking skills associated with the use of digital media: that is, the ability to reason using technologi- cal tools and to make informed decisions. These skills were highlighted by numerous posters in their comments, even if they were not specifically addressing digital literacy.
One of the posters shared his own interpretation of the illiteracy that he runs into in a sector of society, namely bank managing, and he invents the metaphor of the “educated illiterate robot”:
«In a country that I know of and where I had the experience to interact with so-called edu- cated people, I observed that these people, by culture or by training, are becoming what I call “educated illiterate robots”. Recently I had the sad experience of dealing with bank managers who do not even have the slightest idea of the “real” requirements for a foreign corporation to remit money to another country to open a branch office. I call them illiter- ate in the practice of being bank managers. I call them robots too because they do not think, as they are following orders like a robot but without the artificial intelligence chip embedded.»—Francisco Cua. Oct 14, 2013.
What can teachers do to prevent their students from becoming educated illiter- ate robots?
D: Developing Digital Literacy in Teachers …
D2. Digitally Literate Teachers
As for the skills that 21st century teachers must develop and use in their teaching practices, the posters provided and discussed several ideas. Some mentioned the difficulty in being aware of and dealing with the vast amount of information that is retrievable online that 21st century teachers can use for teaching purposes. Being able to cope with large databases is only one aspect of this competency as teachers must also have the ability to incorporate these resources in their classrooms which usually impel a shift in the teaching process, moving away from teacher-centred approaches to student-centred learning strategies.
I have always embraced the concept of the “digital sandbox”, wherein, the connectivity, the visualization of data, the transfer and manipulation of data, is brought together in a conceptual space that has plastic qualities that can be useful for work and for play. Teachers have the unique opportunity to take advantage of this appealing, malleable force. I believe the “playful”, experi- mental qualities are often short-changed for the need to take it all too seri- ously, to be efficient, and profitable, rather than considering something else.
Consider… does not the human mind develop most rapidly as a result of
“play” and from the drive of “curiosity”?—Jonathan Edwards. Nov 19 2012.
The presence of wide information bases—Wikipedia, Internet in general, million books project, etc.—is another aspect for the teachers to be prepared for. … This will influence the teaching process, and instructional approaches being followed.—Sasikumar Mukunda. Nov 18, 2013.
Apart from that, today’s teachers must encourage their students to develop the necessary skills to deal with those digital databases: a simple query may retrieve information that needs to be assessed and selected. However, the way that teachers use the digital information available is another aspect of their digital competence since it must engage students in learning. Some posters address this issue and pro- pose the idea of an interactive/playful classroom.
«I suppose that one important skill would be the approach adapted by the teacher. Thanks to the Internet, information about a particular topic is easily available even to the student.
One needs only to Google the query. Thus, a teacher needs to remember this aspect, and present this freely available information in a way that students, despite having the content, can understand and find interesting. That apart, the interactive/playful classroom is a very good skill that needs to be acquired by the teacher.»—Manan Desai. Nov 19, 2012.
The next poster proposes a way of re-thinking two of these ideas through the concept of a “digital sandbox”. A digital sandbox connects different types of abili- ties related to the manipulation of the digital world and then using that knowledge for implementing classroom scenarios based on experimental activities:
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D3. Digital Literacy in the Classroom
What can today’s teachers do to prepare their students for the 21st century labour market? Apart from identifying the skills that 21st century teachers must develop and master, and how to put them into practice, the posters proposed changes or shared examples of classroom scenarios that promote the development of digital literacy skills to face the 21st century challenges. They recommended that every teacher should use digital literacy skills in their daily practices of preparing the future employees for the electronically permeated workplace.
«One of the skills that a teacher (read: facilitator) can promote is information literacy skill. This skill can be creatively embedded in the curriculum. The focus is to help stu- dents to recognise data, evidence, and chain of reasoning, as they engage in their learn- ing. My “flavour” of learning is to develop skills and enhance students’ ability to connect relevant knowledge during their active learning engagement. Skills development is like teaching students to fish rather than giving them the fish.
When students have learned to recognise data or evidence, and reason coherently and logically, then they should be encouraged to distinguish between the relevant and the irrel- evant, between the important and the unimportant, between the accurate and the inaccu- rate, and between fact and opinion. After students learn to distinguish, then they should learn to organise the data or evidence, and to reason.
This kind of teaching promotes competence (i.e., competency-based learning) and develops skills to develop a learning portfolio (evidence-based learning).»—Francisco Cua. Sep 20 2013.
Some of the contributions point out that 21st century teachers who are digi- tally literate, may actually lead classroom revolutions. Changing the role of the classroom actors by placing a stronger emphasis on student-centred approaches, redesigning the curricula, allowing all sorts of digital tools inside the classroom and validating their learning are just a few examples of what has been put forward by the posters:
«The solution is to redesign the curriculum to focus on skills development. Introduce tasks (projects or anything) for students to engage in. Then through their engagement, introduce them to knowledge construction. For example, the task can be used to develop information literacy skills. Through the task, students can then be asked to construct knowledge, such as to identify, evaluate, and organise the data, pieces of evidence, and reason coherently.
To repeat: Students can be asked to distinguish between the relevant and the irrel- evant, between the important and the unimportant, between the accurate and the inac- curate, and between fact and opinion. The new redesigned curriculum should focus in teaching less and in learning more. Students will have focus in the tests and exams because teachers will now teach more and students will learn less by memorizing.»
—Francisco Cua. Sep 28, 2013.
The impact of digital tools is now surpassing the traditional views of technol- ogy (merely assisting human beings or complementing their activities) and this needs to be recognised when debating learning paradigms. What used to be logi- cal, linear and sequential (Web 1.0 and teacher-centred approaches such as direct instruction), is progressively being transformed into a multimedia, multidimen- sional kind of thinking and acting (Web 3.0 and social learning, gaming).
D: Developing Digital Literacy in Teachers …