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What's coming for sure? Change . . .
Jan. 23, 2010
We need to master technology, not become technology's slave.
And to do that, schools need to focus on finding ways to incorporate new technology into their teachings.
In general, those were some conclusions a pair of Montezuma Community Schools staffers came away with after attending a paior of 21st century skills workshops.
John Gallagher and Keith Sietstra were the staffers, and they filed a report which was presented by Superintendent Dave Versteeg to the Montezuma Board of Education at its January meeting.
"Just tonght I heared on the news that kids spend more time connected to some device than they do sleeping," Versteeg said while introducing the report. "It's a different world."
"The most important point," Gallagher and Sietstra wrote, "is to have your content finalized, and THEN find technology to supplement and help you accomplish your teaching goals. You don't get the technology and try to fit the content to use the technology, it will never be fulfilling."
"The analogy given," they wrote, "was when you go dig a hole you must first decide to dig the hole and then choose the apporpriate tool (shovel) instead of choosing a tool (hammer) and then trying to dig the hole."
Here is the balance of their report:
21st century skills are a framework of skills that all Iowa students will need to have upon high school graduation to lead to a productive and satisfying life in a global environment. Schools must strive to move beyond basic compentency in core subjects to promoting understanding academic content at much higher levels. Ths is done by weavng the 21st century skills into the core subjects of math, science, literacy and social studies.
The Iowa Legislature in 2007 established the Iowa 21st century skills and employability and financial, health, technology and civic literacy.
These skills are considered important for the following reasons:
- The globalization of economics
- The explosion of scientific and technological knowledge
- Necessary inter-related dimensions of important issues
- Changes that will result in a world much different from the won we enter after high school graduation.
21st century skills workshops
We don't know exactly what the work of the future will be like or what kinds of technology will be in the forefront of usefulness. Therefore, we must prepare students to think creatively, to be self-reflective, and use reason to question and make analysis.
The first two workshops we attended were solely about technology with these being some of the main ideas:
- The world is changing faster than before in respect to technology. An example given was the TV. It stayed in the forefront of technology for 60 years. Now, new technologies can be outdated within a year or two. This presents a major problem for schools purchasing technology, as it can be a no-win battle trying to stay on top.
- Instead of fighting a battle of getting kids to not use the technology in front of them (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc.), we should try to find ways to implement those into our teachings and thus ask the students to use creativity.
- Careers at the bottom of skills required are being increasingly replaced by careers that require abstract thinking, creativeness and flexibility.
- Gradual change in technology doesn't usually accomplish anything. The analogy given was that you cannot jump a 20-foot ravine in two 10-foot jumps. It needs to be done with one jump. Meaning we either have to be all into this idea, or we will be left behind because the rate of change in the near future is going to be astronomical.
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